Guest Lecture Dan-Hassler Forest (Utrecht University)

I WANT MY FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM!
Neoliberalism and Utopian Science Fiction

From Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov to Star Trek and The Jetsons, 20th-century science fiction was full of promise for a utopian post-capitalist future. But even as a growing number of theorists, commentators, and economists agree that the only sustainable future must move beyond capitalism’s stifling constraints, positive fictional representations of a better future are in desperately short supply. In this provocative lecture, Dan Hassler-Forest will reflect on capitalist culture’s fundamental futurelessness, the dangers of nostalgia culture, and the challenges of articulating a new utopian horizon.

The event is free and open to the public.
It takes place in the context of the Conference Worlding SF -
www.worlding-sf.com.

This lecture is organized by the Department of American Studies and co-funded by the ERASMUS+ Programm of the European Union.

Department of American Studies Graz
Institut für Amerikanistik
Attemsgasse 25/II
A-8010 Graz
Tel. +43/316/380-2465
amerikanistik(at)uni-graz.at