Season 4 episode 9.5: The Fantasies of Post apocalyptic Dystopian Fiction (Special Extra Bonus Half Episode)

There was so much to explore about post-apocalyptic fiction and the fantasies it allows us to have of, for instance, being the colonized "good guys" instead of the colonizer "bad guys" that we ended up with an entire extra half episode. What is the moral responsibility of reading post-apocalyptic science fiction? How should we feel about enjoying works that position white colonizers as victims?

Here it is! Enjoy!!

https://youtu.be/mBD_OMACgZc?si=uhDrccNnuVJxEmwd

#Episode #Season4 #YouTube #solarpunk #SolarpunkPresentsPodcast #podcast #apocalypse #PostApocalypse #fantasy #DystopianFiction #Dystopia #AntiUtopia #FutureImaginary #Futuring #Scholarship #ScienceFiction #SF #SpeculativeFiction #ApocalypticFiction

Season 4 episode 9: The Fantasies of Post-apocalyptic Dystopian Fiction, with Ariel Kroon

Classic, post-apocalyptic, dystopian fiction is a type of fantasy where we’re dreaming of starting over in an empty landscape from a societal and cultural slate wiped clean by some devastating event that we don’t have to feel guilty about having happened—at least, it is according to our very own Ariel Kroon, who does, yes, have a PhD in it.* Yet, at the same time, these fantasies generally suffer from a strange lack of imagination, wherein the characters use the “fresh new start” to recreate the same old society, albeit with themselves at the top, with the same old systemic socioeconomic, environmental, and structural problems.

It’s almost as if it is easy to dream up apocalypse but next to impossible to envision a different way of living. Although a failure of imagination would most likely look different for solarpunk, can solarpunk creators and dreamers of a positive future avoid falling into the same sort of trap?

*Post-apocalyptic Canadian science-fiction 1948-1989, she wants to clarify. She’s even got the thesis to prove it.

https://youtu.be/IdouMiiRoWc?si=fJgNd4RkpoUk_fH2

#Episode #Season4 #YouTube #solarpunk #SolarpunkPresentsPodcast #podcast #apocalypse #PostApocalypse #fantasy #DystopianFiction #Dystopia #AntiUtopia #FutureImaginary #Futuring #Scholarship #ScienceFiction #SF #SpeculativeFiction #ApocalypticFiction