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-a rationale for your chosen topic (including reflection on how the taught elements of your programme have helped you develop it)
Literature Review:
-Brief overview
Methods:
-an overview of the methods you plan to use in developing and writing up the project (including reflection on how any methods training you have taken has helped inform these)
-how gather info, lit review
-Methodology – what are u gonna look at?
Timeline:
End of May- Completed Research, Collected quotes, working on literature review and intro
June 15th- Chapter 1 / first section written
End of June- Chapter 2 / second section written
July 15th- Chapter 3 / third section written
End of July- Conclusion, writing completed
1st – 10th of August – Edit
Potential Ethical Challenges:
my perspective, bias & bias in academic lit used – acknowledge and outline my perspective and examine research in lit review
Mode of Representation:
a statement of the intended mode of representation you will use in the final project report
Appendix:
an appendix listing the dates of significant blog posts building to the project plan with direct links, or inline citations and a references – this will be used to make a judgement on whether you have actively engaged with the blog and made meaningful, consistent posts (in other words to assess whether you pass or fail the course; it is not included in the final word count and should include around 10 posts, although it is the quality of the posts and your integration of them into the plan which is most important)
An update on where I am with my project & an informal annotated bibliography
Update:
-A few weeks ago I had a meeting with Simon Western, CEO/Founder of The Eco-Leadership Institute, and we had a discussion about my project. He has a podcast, Edgy Ideas, on which he invites various guests to talk about their expertise and ideas about the world. Some relevant episodes I have listened to so far are: Purpose Upgrade with Paul Skinner, Becoming Digital Savvy with Anni Rowland-Campbell, and Lurking Monsters with Nora Bateson. These were very interesting and although his work centers more on coaching and psychoanalytic perspectives, some ideas discussed could come into play in my project. He is interested in a plethora of theory including Latour and Haraway, who I had planned on including or centering my project around. We therefore discussed these ideas briefly and he gave some suggestions for further reading. He suggested: Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern – https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=latour+modern&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
and an unpublished paper of his own which is extremely relevant and discusses Haraway and technology.
Project:
Cyborgs and Intersectionality in Sci-fi and Speculative Fiction – Narratives of bodies, machines, and nature
– connection / disconnection / re-connection
My research will be an essay looking at contemporary speculative literature and theory surrounding speculative fiction, speculative futures, and technology and the body. It will largely use qualitative analysis and also contain some small sections of my own creative writing. The data will be literature and academic texts. I will undertake a literature review to outline my main texts and their perspectives and potential biases. The aim will be to explore and outline how we can make the world better and counter oppressive systems by envisioning hopeful futures through speculative fiction that contains intersectionality and the blurring of boundaries between nature (the body) and technology. The main research question will be something akin to, how do intersectional cyborgs in speculative fiction create hopeful futures?
It will expand on the ideas in Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and accompanying texts, including the academic literature which responded and followed as well as fiction focused on those topics.
A preliminary overview of and reflection on the academic literature that I will be drawing on for my project – Informal Annotated Bibliography
-HARAWAY, DONNA J., and CARY WOLFE. Manifestly Haraway. University of Minnesota Press, 2016. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1b7x5f6. Accessed 2 April 2024.
I will particularly focus on the chapter ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ which was originally published in 1985, and its ideas. In ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ Haraway outlines how the idea (and potentially the reality) of the cyborg – a synthesis of human and technology – has the potential to be a tool of feminist emancipation.
-Cutanda, Grian A. The Earth Stories Collection: How To Make Another World Possible with Myths, Legends and Traditional Stories. The Earth Stories Collection, 2019.
Collects and sometimes alters traditional stories from various cultures around the world and adds to them. Discusses counter stories or counter narratives and their importance as well as the importance of oral storytelling traditions.
-DUNNE, ANTHONY, and FIONA RABY. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. The MIT Press, 2013. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qf7j7. Accessed 2 April 2024.
-Latour, Bruno. On the Emergence of an Ecological Class : A Memo : Subject – How to Promote the Emergence of an Ecological Class That’s Self-Aware and Proud / Bruno Latour and Nikolaj Schultz ; Translated by Julie Rose. Edited by Nikolaj Schultz and Julie Rose, Polity Press, 2022, https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/secure/link?id=4e47c45f-629e-ee11-ad36-a04a5e5d2f8d.
-Womack, Ytasha L. Afrofuturism the World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. Lawrence Hill Books, 2013, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57718389725e25272beacd64/t/5f998f434c2ae52feda5ca70/1603899211765/Afrofuturism+the+world+of+black+sci-fi+and+fantasy+culture++by+Ytasha+L.+Womack..pdf.
-VanderMeer, Ann, and Jeff VanderMeer. The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Vintage Books, 2016.
My current idea is to build on my research from my undergraduate degree, in which I wrote a dissertation called ‘Keith Piper and Speculative Narratives: How Visions of the Body and Technology Influence Speculative Futures’. This dissertation focused on the artist Keith Piper and his work, particularly his exhibition ‘Jet Black Futures’ (2022), discussing how his work explores the complex questions surrounding technology and the body, its science fiction influences, and how it creates speculative narratives.
Influenced by the electives so far (Text Remix, Interdisciplinary Futures, World of Story, and Creating Visual Narratives), I have found new texts and areas to explore (for example, the work of the Author Ursula Le Guin) and reconnected creatively, producing works of visual and written narrative that I didn’t know I was capable of. I also learned about many new tools and ways of creating these narratives, including using AI.
Initially, I thought that I might just write an essay, focusing on the texts and works which interested me, however, now I am considering doing a blended project, consisting of both essay and of my own creations (possibly a written or visual narrative which exemplifies my ideas about speculative futures).
At the moment, my developing idea for my project is to explore diverse speculative narratives, focusing on technology and the body, and potentially blend in some of my own creative work as well (creative writing or a visual narrative). I would like to explore this in a interdisciplinary/cross-disciplinary way. Additionally, I would like to go more in depth, explore intersectionality, and explore texts and areas that I did not get to explore before or have discovered since.
Some of the new influences I would like to explore include, Ursula Le Guin, Janelle Monet’s work (specifically the book ‘The Memory Librarian’), Alberta Whittle, Rashaad Newsome, and Solomon Enos.
My first idea is to write an essay – based on my undergraduate dissertation – about speculative narratives, looking at particular works/ a particular work (art, literature, etc) and analysing how it explores hopeful visions of the future. Possibly focusing on embodiment, technology, Afro-futurism, and the blurring of boundaries (e.g. cyborgs) which I explored before. These are topics which I am really interested in and so would like to explore further, with more depth, and perhaps in a new way. Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (and other similar texts) were key to this and align with my beliefs and passions.
Another idea I think it would be interesting to explore is the phenomenon of stories depicting multiverses (multiple worlds/branching universes/diverging alternate realities) which I think may be a current zeitgeisty trend/ moment or a response to the current zeitgeist (current politics, climate grief, etc). There is a boom/growth/increased popularity of these stories which I think must be reflection of our time in some way- link to technology and metaverse. What does this obsession say about us and about art? Perhaps that we are fed up of existing structures and our current society and operations – that we want to explore alternate universes/ break it apart- break these structures. Or is it some kind of escapist obsession- escapist fantasy? Esp due to increasing climate grief. I think it would be really interesting to research and unpack why we are currently drawn to these sorts of stories and worlds. For example the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Spiderverse, Stranger Things, the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, and a personal favorite of mine: Dimension 20’s Neverafter. People seem to have really latched on to these narratives (specifically where the multiverse is the subject/ key to the themes of the piece and not just the setting). I think it explores the ideas of power, freedom, control, and autonomy and allows us to explore/live in/imagine/escape to worlds different to our own where potentially we are better off – e.g. in relation to climate change. Or potentially it allows us to feel that our decisions and our world are not that important on the grand scale of things, exploring the ideas of free will vs predestination, and potentially relieving our guilt. Perhaps, identifying ourselves with the main characters of these narratives – who often unlock/discover the truth of the universe (that it is one of many) and often gain the power to travel between, influence, and even save different universes. These narratives give us this specific kind of power, perhaps responding to the nihilistic, powerless feeling we all experience in face of the world’s current challenges which feel so unsolvable and so much bigger than any of us. (The idea of a metaverse as an escape/back up world I think also links to this).
Following the World of Story course, I feel that there are more ideas to explore than ever, and have been introduced to new inspirations and influences such as Indigenous Futurism and the artist Solomon Enos, which I would love to explore more. I feel that there are more creative options open to me which I hadn’t fully considered before, such as featuring my own writing in my Futures Project. It was really great to get a crash course in play writing and to reconnect to my practical creative skills, getting to draw again. It really got my creative juices flowing. I think, in response to this, it would be great to incorporate indigenous futurism and my own creative work in my Futures project somehow.
