Feminist Speculative Futures: Imagination, and the Search for Alternatives in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The ongoing social and ecological crises have brought many people together around an urgent quest to search for other kinds of possibilities for the future; imagination and fiction play a key role in these searches. The thesis engages the concept of imagination by considering it in relation to feminist SF, which stands for science fact, science fiction, speculative fabulation, string figures, so far. (Haraway, 2013) The thesis will engage the ideas of feminist SF with a focus on the works of Donna Haraway and Ursula Le Guin and their approaches to the capacity of imagination in the context of SF practices. It considers the role of imagination and feminist speculative fiction in challenging and converting prevalent ideas of human-exceptionalism entangled with dominant forms of Man-made narratives and storylines. This conversion through feminist SF leans towards ecological, nondualist modes of thinking that question possibilities for a collective flourishing while aiming to go beyond the anthropocentric and cynical discourse of the Anthropocene.