The imagination curriculum
From Jeanne: I often get asked, “Can we share book recommendations on here?” And the answer is absolutely! As long as the commentary goes beyond whether you enjoyed the book and explores how it made you think and think again, what questions it raised, or what assumptions it challenged. That's really what we're here for, after all!
Which brings me to this piece, which is an absolute gem!! I actually had to stop myself from reading it in one go it was so good!
Zoe Scaman (author of this article) explains beautifully how many sci-fi writers have already explored numerous scenarios of what life could be like if we dared to imagine it. As she puts it somewhere in here (sorry, I’m going to butcher it!); “it’s one thing to wonder about an alternative society as an intellectual exercise, and quite another to spend 300 pages inside one, experiencing its complexities and contradictions…”
She recommends a range of authors and, for each of them, offers one or two overarching questions that the author explores. Such a clever way to recommend a book! An I will say, reading this artcile has totally changed how I think/feel about science fiction writing; I feel so inspired by the questions the authors of these books are exploring…
I was even considering pulling out some of those questions and maybe think about them collectively, here, on TTA? Maybe as conversation starters? Or as a themes for future “In the Open meet-ups”? If this is something you’d fancy, please feel free to comment below on the ones you would like to explore together and we can start from there :)
Comments