Co-hosted by African Speculative Fiction Society
Abstract
Writer J.M. Coetzee has understood literary realism to be a discourse of power, as it lulls its readers into the sense that it is the true construction of reality, uncritical of how a reality is indoctrinated with certain ideological tendencies hidden within realist modes of writing. Further, writers such Nnedi Okorafor and Ben Okri have critiqued binary genres of the real and imagined. Okorafor states that her African Futurist works are “from the soil of the real” and Okri famously declared that his magical realism is just ‘realism’. Speculation as a literary genre has been bound up with political and social landscapes across Africa and its diaspora. The seminar explores the relationship between irrealism (inclusive of, for example, speculative fictions, science fiction, futurisms, horror, alternative history and magical realism) and how such fictions act as resistant narratives to current and past realities in times of change, violence and political struggle. What exactly is the nature and role of hope and activism in such texts, and how can speculative fictions disrupt and dismantle accepted and often enforced realities?
Biography
Michelle Louise Clarke is a postdoctoral researcher. Her research interests centre around African Philosophy and Environmental Ethics. She is particularly interested in how science fiction, speculative genres and imaginative scenarios can be used to produce very real outcomes for policy implementation and sustainable futures. She completed her PhD at SOAS University, London, where her thesis focused on ecocritical discourse within Anglo-African Speculative Fictions. She obtained a Research Masters (MRes.) from Lancaster University and her background in the field of Environment and Development means she has carried out varied field work projects, such as assessing the impacts of climate change on hibiscus growers in Uganda and researching the use of oral history in land disputes cases in Ghana.
This event is part of the Applied African SF project‘s ongoing series of events