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Incantatory Fictions and Golden Age Nostalgia: Futurist Practices in Contemporary Science Fiction

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The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science

Part of the book series: Palgrave Handbooks of Literature and Science ((PAHALISC))

Abstract

Science fiction (SF) and futurism have a long history. While futurists have at times looked to SF to predict or prepare for the future, SF in the twenty-first century is increasingly called upon to make, revitalize, or alter the future. Collaborations such as Arizona State University’s Project Hieroglyph generate incantatory fictions that are meant to produce effects in the real world. Incantatory fictions embed different assumptions about the relationship between science, fiction, and society in their formal structure and in their conditions of production and reception. While Neal Stephenson’s nostalgic retrofuturism suggests a direct model of incantation whereby the author provides a technological blueprint, Vandana Singh grapples with a theory of techno-social change emerging from myriad actors, suited to the pluralism of contemporary SF.

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Acknowledgement

My thanks to Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich for helpful feedback on a draft of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Rebecca Wilbanks

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  1. Rebecca Wilbanks
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Neel Ahuja

  2. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Monique Allewaert

  3. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Lindsey Andrews

  4. Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Gerry Canavan

  5. Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, USA

    Rebecca Evans

  6. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Nihad M. Farooq

  7. University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

    Erica Fretwell

  8. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Nicholas Gaskill

  9. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Patrick Jagoda

  10. Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Erin Gentry Lamb

  11. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Jennifer Rhee

  12. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    Britt Rusert

  13. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Matthew A. Taylor

  14. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Aarthi Vadde

  15. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Priscilla Wald

  16. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Rebecca Walsh

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Wilbanks, R. (2020). Incantatory Fictions and Golden Age Nostalgia: Futurist Practices in Contemporary Science Fiction. In: Ahuja, N., et al. The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science. Palgrave Handbooks of Literature and Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48244-2_13

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