Talk: Worldbuilding - imagining hopeful futures in a changing climate
One might summarise the work of a critical futurist with a proposition and a question: "The Future" is dead. What might we build instead?
The proposition should make emotional sense. The sense of grief and stasis that dominates the present is a form of mourning for a promise that will never be kept. It becomes clearer as we begin to see that all futures are narratives, and that "The Future" was always already an exercise in marketing.
The question, then, is our exit from grief: what might we build instead? Worldbuilding is the practice of imagining, envisioning and exploring the different ways that things might be. More simply, worldbuilding is storytelling---and there are many media and methods through which our futures might be (re)written.
Hope is hard to find in these challenging times. But there is good news: much like meaning, hope is not found, but made. Worldbuilding, together, is one way that we can make it. Let me show you how.
Program
- Introduction by Professor Michele Betsill
- Talk: Worldbuilding: imagining hopeful futures in a changing climate by dr. Paul Graham Raven
- Q&A with Professor Michele Betsill and student Csilla Duray
- Plenum debate
- From 5 pm there will be network with wine and snacks
Dr. Paul Graham Raven is a writer, researcher and critical futures consultant, whose work explores how the stories we tell shape the lives we end up living. Paul is also an author and critic of science fiction, and a collaborator with designers and artists. He currently lives in Malmö with a cat, some guitars, and too many books. / paulgrahamraven.com