Graham B. Slater – författare

Horizons of the Future: Science Fiction, Utopian Imagination, and the Politics of Education examines the relationship between science fiction, education, and social change in the 21st century.

Global capitalism is ecologically unsustainable and ethically indefensible; time is running out to alter the course of history if humanity is to have hope of a livable future beyond the next century. However, alternatives are possible, offering much more equality, care, justice, joy, and hope than the established order. Popular culture and schools are key sites of struggles to imagine such alternatives. Drawing on critical theory, cultural studies, and sociology, Slater articulates the promising connection between science fiction and the future of education. He offers cutting-edge engagement with themes, perspectives, and modes of imagination in science fiction that can be mobilized politically and pedagogically to envision and enact critical forms of education that cultivate new utopian ways of relating to self, society, and the future.

This thought-provoking book will be of interest to scholars and students in the social sciences and education.

Horizons of the Future: Science Fiction, Utopian Imagination, and the Politics of Education examines the relationship between science fiction, education, and social change in the 21st century.

Global capitalism is ecologically unsustainable and ethically indefensible; time is running out to alter the course of history if humanity is to have hope of a livable future beyond the next century. However, alternatives are possible, offering much more equality, care, justice, joy, and hope than the established order. Popular culture and schools are key sites of struggles to imagine such alternatives. Drawing on critical theory, cultural studies, and sociology, Slater articulates the promising connection between science fiction and the future of education. He offers cutting-edge engagement with themes, perspectives, and modes of imagination in science fiction that can be mobilized politically and pedagogically to envision and enact critical forms of education that cultivate new utopian ways of relating to self, society, and the future.

This thought-provoking book will be of interest to scholars and students in the social sciences and education.

Increasingly, contemporary education exhibits characteristics that have often been associated with science fiction. The acceleration of technological change and ecological crisis, and the intensification of fascist, authoritarian, and xenophobic identifications, haunt both the present and possible futures. Despite these emergent tendencies, educational discourse retains its marketized assumptions, instrumental economism, and techno-optimism. The pursuit of educational futures that are informed by a cultural politics of utopian imagination faces major obstacles to intervene in time to map alternative trajectories and build new worlds.

Bringing together diverse perspectives, theoretical approaches, and texts, the book asks what science fiction can bring to cultural politics in education, and how the cultural politics of science fiction can transform educational futures. It also questions whether science fiction can guide educational projects that aim to foster visions of what Fredric Jameson called ‘unimaginable futures’ and if critical studies of science fiction can guide scholars, teachers, and cultural workers to think about the purpose and potential of education in the current moment. This imaginative volume demonstrates how thinking with science fiction affords educators a speculative energy made artificially scarce by precarious conditions, reactionary ideologies, and hegemonic practicality.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies.

Increasingly, contemporary education exhibits characteristics that have often been associated with science fiction. The acceleration of technological change and ecological crisis, and the intensification of fascist, authoritarian, and xenophobic identifications, haunt both the present and possible futures. Despite these emergent tendencies, educational discourse retains its marketized assumptions, instrumental economism, and techno-optimism. The pursuit of educational futures that are informed by a cultural politics of utopian imagination faces major obstacles to intervene in time to map alternative trajectories and build new worlds.

Bringing together diverse perspectives, theoretical approaches, and texts, the book asks what science fiction can bring to cultural politics in education, and how the cultural politics of science fiction can transform educational futures. It also questions whether science fiction can guide educational projects that aim to foster visions of what Fredric Jameson called ‘unimaginable futures’ and if critical studies of science fiction can guide scholars, teachers, and cultural workers to think about the purpose and potential of education in the current moment. This imaginative volume demonstrates how thinking with science fiction affords educators a speculative energy made artificially scarce by precarious conditions, reactionary ideologies, and hegemonic practicality.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies.