Speculative Fictions and Critical Fabulations

Course Description

Summary

Speculative fiction is storytelling that starts with something real, some phenomenon observable in the present or recent past, and asks “What if?” - extrapolating into the future or alternate realities. Critical fabulation, as coined by Saidiya Hartman in the essay “Venus in Two Acts,” is a method for recovering unwritten histories. By speculating about the inaccessible, silenced voices of the past, one might be able to “tell an impossible story” while simultaneously amplifying the “impossibility of its telling.” The implications of this act are not merely confined to “counter-histories” but also encompass a “history of the present…[and] the incomplete project of freedom.” In this class, we will read texts and watch films that use speculative fiction and critical fabulation to tell stories about the past and future that simultaneously illuminate incomplete projects, missing records, and both visible and invisible dangers in our present moment. Course materials will range from very recent and popular films to more obscure offerings. Students will be expected to write brief responses to assigned readings or screenings, and to co-lead in-class discussions of assigned materials. They will be required to produce one shorter midterm paper, screenplay, or project, and one longer final paper or project. Projects may take a range of possible forms, including for the final, a film based on the midterm screenplay, for those who choose that midterm option. Both midterms and finals must be preceded by a proposal discussed with and approved by the instructor, and both will be presented in class for peer feedback.