VilÉm Flusser (1920–1991) was born in Prague; emigrated to Brazil, where he taught philosophy and wrote a daily newspaper column; and later moved to France. Minnesota has published a dozen of Flusser’s works in translation, among them Into the Universe of Technical Images, Does Writing Have a Future?, Gestures, and VampyroteuthisInfernalis.Anke Finger is professor of German studies and media studies at the University of Connecticut, where she also inaugurated the Digital Humanities and Media Studies Initiative at the Humanities Institute. She is cofounder of the open access journal Flusser Studies and coauthor of Vilem Flusser: An Introduction (Minnesota, 2011).   Kenneth Kronenberg has been a translator for nearly thirty years, specializing in German intellectual and cultural history and diaries and letters. His recent translations include Jorun Poettering’s Trade, Nation, and Religion and Fritz TrÜmpi’s Political Orchestras.Kenneth Goldsmith is an American avant-garde poet and critic, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and founder of the UbuWeb online archive of experimental literary and visual art.

"While the universe Flusser created with his previous book, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, explores a single alternate lifeworld coherent in its mirroring of the human species by a cephalopod, each scenario in What If? suggests a variety of new ideas, given the speculative, projecting nature of their setting-in the best and most creative sense of ‘what if’-in the past, the present, or the future."-from the Introduction

• Introduction: What If? Into the Slipstream of Flusser’s “Field of Possibilities”Anke FingerFirst Scenario: What If . . .Part I. Scenes from Family LifeSecond Scenario: GrandmotherThird Scenario: GrandfatherFourth Scenario: Great UncleFifth Scenario: BrothersSixth Scenario: SonSeventh Scenario: GrandchildrenEighth Scenario: Great-GrandchildrenPart II. Scenes from Economic LifeNinth Scenario: Economic MiracleTenth Scenario: Foreign AidEleventh Scenario: Mechanical EngineeringTwelfth Scenario: AgricultureThirteenth Scenario: Chemical IndustryFourteenth Scenario: Animal HusbandryPart III. Scenes from PoliticsFifteenth Scenario: WarSixteenth Scenario: Aural ObedienceSeventeenth Scenario: Perpetual PeaceEighteenth Scenario: RevolutionNineteenth Scenario: Parliamentary DemocracyTwentieth Scenario: Aryan ImperialismTwenty-First Scenario: Black Is BeautifulPart IV. ShowdownTwenty-Second Scenario: A BreatherAfterwordKenneth GoldsmithAcknowledgmentsNotes

VilÉm Flusser (1920–1991) was born in Prague; emigrated to Brazil, where he taught philosophy and wrote a daily newspaper column; and later moved to France. Minnesota has published a dozen of Flusser’s works in translation, among them Into the Universe of Technical Images, Does Writing Have a Future?, Gestures, and VampyroteuthisInfernalis.Anke Finger is professor of German studies and media studies at the University of Connecticut, where she also inaugurated the Digital Humanities and Media Studies Initiative at the Humanities Institute. She is cofounder of the open access journal Flusser Studies and coauthor of Vilem Flusser: An Introduction (Minnesota, 2011).   Kenneth Kronenberg has been a translator for nearly thirty years, specializing in German intellectual and cultural history and diaries and letters. His recent translations include Jorun Poettering’s Trade, Nation, and Religion and Fritz TrÜmpi’s Political Orchestras.Kenneth Goldsmith is an American avant-garde poet and critic, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and founder of the UbuWeb online archive of experimental literary and visual art.

"While the universe Flusser created with his previous book, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, explores a single alternate lifeworld coherent in its mirroring of the human species by a cephalopod, each scenario in What If? suggests a variety of new ideas, given the speculative, projecting nature of their setting-in the best and most creative sense of ‘what if’-in the past, the present, or the future."-from the Introduction

• Introduction: What If? Into the Slipstream of Flusser’s “Field of Possibilities”Anke FingerFirst Scenario: What If . . .Part I. Scenes from Family LifeSecond Scenario: GrandmotherThird Scenario: GrandfatherFourth Scenario: Great UncleFifth Scenario: BrothersSixth Scenario: SonSeventh Scenario: GrandchildrenEighth Scenario: Great-GrandchildrenPart II. Scenes from Economic LifeNinth Scenario: Economic MiracleTenth Scenario: Foreign AidEleventh Scenario: Mechanical EngineeringTwelfth Scenario: AgricultureThirteenth Scenario: Chemical IndustryFourteenth Scenario: Animal HusbandryPart III. Scenes from PoliticsFifteenth Scenario: WarSixteenth Scenario: Aural ObedienceSeventeenth Scenario: Perpetual PeaceEighteenth Scenario: RevolutionNineteenth Scenario: Parliamentary DemocracyTwentieth Scenario: Aryan ImperialismTwenty-First Scenario: Black Is BeautifulPart IV. ShowdownTwenty-Second Scenario: A BreatherAfterwordKenneth GoldsmithAcknowledgmentsNotes