(film reel clattering) - Welcome to today's Ethnic Media Services Zoom news conference.

[background music] I'm Sandy Close, director of EMS.

Today's briefing focuses on sci-fi writers imagining alternative realities and futures, a booming genre across the world.

An increasingly racially and ethnically diverse field of writers both in the U.S. and abroad are using fiction, speculative science, fantasy, to reimagine their world and their future, as well as complex problems like climate change, the legacies of colonialism and globalization, violence against women, inequality, and other issues.

A panel of writers and experts discuss how fiction genres that used to be identified with aliens, spaceships, and monsters coming out mainly from a Western, white, male perspective, [background music fades] with some exceptions, have become a popular way to deal with, or react to, world realities.

Our speakers include Ericka A. Hoagland, associate professor and coordinator of Graduate Studies, English and Creative Writing, Stephen F. Austin State University, co-author of "Science Fiction, Imperialism and the Third World"; Libia Brenda, writer, editor and translator, based in Mexico City, Climate Imagination fellow with the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University; Ken Liu, American author of speculative fiction, winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards, winner of top genre honors in Japan, Spain, and France; Isis Asare, founder of Sistah Scifi, first Black-owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy in the U.S., validated by the American Book Sellers Association.

Now, let me turn this over.

We've been talking about and really anticipating today's panel for weeks.

And, thank you, Pilar, for putting this panel together, our associate editor at EMS.

- This has just been fascinating.

I've been learning a lot.

I knew next to nothing about science fiction and now, thanks to our panelists, I know a bit more.

So, let's go right into it, and I wanna start with Professor Hoagland, Professor Ericka Hoagland, because she was the first person that I talked to, the first person that agreed to be on the panel and she told me a big deal about this genre!

So, Ericka, welcome so much.

So, I'm just gonna go right to the point.

When we talked, you said that your background in post-colonial literature and theory.

And then, that science fiction is a really good vehicle for exploring the ongoing legacy of colonialism and it's new manifestations, like globalization, climate change, civil wars, economic interdependency of various nations, et cetera.

These are your words.

So, can you talk a little bit about that?

Just two minutes, if you can.

I know it's a lot to talk about in two minutes, but try to keep it there!

- Well, I think the best way for me to connect to some of those larger, more kind of sweeping observations, is to connect to a few stories.

I was thinking about how to connect to some stories that I share with my own students in the classroom to help them better appreciate the way, especially science fiction, is being marshaled or mobilized to really talk about the things that they're reading about and hearing about in the news cycle and that they see impacting the world they inhabit.

And so, I think I'm gonna connect to a couple of stories that I've recently shared with my students.

One is this really fantastic story, short story by the Indian science fiction writer.

She also happens to be a physicist teaching here in the States, Vandana Singh.

Her story "Mother Ocean," which is just a beautifully crafted story that is set in a future point in Earth, you know, potential future, where the ocean levels have risen significantly displacing millions of people, including the tribal community of the protagonist.

And, she ends up developing a friendship, a connection, with one of the remaining blue whales on the planet that has become trapped with these- I can't remember- fiber optic meshing that's been in the ocean and it's caught in all of its teeth, and she helps to get rid of this meshing and saves the whale's life.

But, more importantly, she learns to speak the whale's language.

She develops a way to communicate with the whale.

And, in thinking about the ways that these stories that, you know, this story, as an example, is starting to look to possible futures, to look at science fiction beyond that kind of stereotype of space travel and space conquest.

And, looking at it instead as very localized, regionalized, tapping into communities and how they experience the world right now.

What happens in this story, when she learns that language, to me, it really communicates that we need to learn nature's language and stop forcing nature to speak our language.

If we're gonna have any hope of saving ourselves and protecting the planet.

And, another good example, I think, of the ways that writers that, you know, years ago would have seemed to not fit with this stereotypical idea of science fiction as very masculine, Western, all of those things.

Nnedi Okorafor is this fantastic writer, Nigerian American writer.

And, her short story, "Spider the Artist," is another story that I share with my students because it allows them to connect with something that they probably don't know about, which is what's happening in the Nigerian Delta.

The massive ecological damage that's being done because of the oil reserves there.

And, in a similar way, the protagonist in that story, the friends, a creature in this case, an AI built like a spider that has been sent to protect the pipeline running through her village.

And, they find a mutual connection through music.

And, again, it's just interesting that both of those stories are pushing a message, you know, promoting a message about we need to look at things differently if we're going to find a way out of the present that the past has brought us to.

We need to look at the past differently and we need to move forward in ways that I think hold us more accountable for our actions.

And, I've noticed that a lot in the science fiction-- - [Pilar] Mm hm.

- That I've been sharing with my students.

So that's, for me, that's the way to come back to your question is rather than focus on these larger things, these stories I think offer an example.

- Okay.

Thank you so much, Ericka.

Libia, I'm gonna invite you to speak now.

You're in Mexico.

You talked to me about some work that you have done and also, you know, with the Center but also with some other Mexican women writers.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

'Cause I really like that piece that you talked to me about.

- Yeah.

Well, the people from the Center of Science and Imagination, which-- the name?

It's adorable!

(laughs) I really love it.

They contacted me and they invited me to this fellowship with Vandana Singh, with Hannah Nguyen, who is based-- I don't remember right now which place in Africa.

And now, Gu Shi, who is from China.

The four of us were invited.

And, when they invited me, I was very surprised.

I was like, "oh my God, it's really me!

(laughs) Who are you looking for?"

But, also, after some thought, I invited more people to come with me and I proposed the people from the Center, from the fellowship, if I could collaborate with other writers and some scientists, because I am part of some collectives here in Mexico, that made-- we made science fiction.

We made fantastic literature.

We organized panels.

We have, like, a lot of work related to science fiction and also, in a particular case, science fiction and science.

And, the people from the Center, they were like, "Okay, if you want to, "then you have to deal with all the people and you just bring us the texts."

And, I was like, "Of course."

So, what we did was five writers, we made the word building and the point is Iztacc í huatl, which is one of the volcanoes that are-- in the middle of the country, there is like a volcano chain.

(chuckles) And, this volcano, Iztacc í huatl, it's, like, the second-- (alarm beeps) I'm sorry.

Augh!

(chuckles) The two minutes?

The two minutes, just-- - [Pilar] Keep going, keep going.

Don't worry.

Don't worry about that!

- [Libia] Um?

So-?

- [Pilar] Just tell us about the story.

- We set the story in 2025.

And then, some decades in the future and in the future, and in the future.

And, each of us made a little piece.

So, there is like a narrative arc that connects all the stories.

And, the setting is that a volcano erupts, which is some-- due to some climate change factors.

And, that provokes big changes in the atmosphere and in the ecosystems.

So, we are imagining how we are going to live after something like that.

That is, like, very-?

Like-- it's a probability.

It's a probability here in Mexico.

So, we have been writing and we have been consulting with scientists and we have been-- one of us is an artist and she has been making some drawings and it's a collective effort.

And, in the future, that is going to be translated.

Actually, it's already translated now.

And, they are going to publish it and it's a collective story.

So, it's an experiment in many ways and it's a science fiction-based story.

- Okay, Ken?

I'm gonna give you a broad question.

How do you use your writing to pursue your interest and to imagine or reimagine our world?

- So, that's a great question.

So, just to give a little bit of a background to contextualize what I'm about to say.

I have an overriding concern with technology and interest in technology, and that sort of guides a lot of my thinking.

In some ways, I think the genre, science fiction, is misnamed.

The vast majority of science fiction has almost nothing to do with science!

(chuckles) The vast majority of science fiction are really fiction about technology.

So, you know, "tech-fi" might be a better name for it than sci-fi.

So, what is the distinction between science and technology?

Well, it's commonly thought of as science is this sort of higher abstract, nobler pursuit, and technology is nothing more than the application of scientific insights.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Often, technology races way ahead of science.

Technology is an art.

It's about our attempt, the human attempt, to make mental structures tangible.

So, I say that it's not possible to understand human nature unless you understand human technology; in the same way that it is not possible to understand beavers without understanding their dams, or honeybees without understanding beehives.

Human craft is nothing more than the physical, tangible manifestation of human mental patterns.

And, if you wish to understand human nature, you must understand human technology.

And often, technology races way ahead of science.

We're witnessing that right now.

Almost no theoretician of artificial intelligence predicted that the current approach of large language models will yield results, as wonderful as they have been.

In fact, most of the practitioners would concede that they do not understand how things like ChatGPT are able to do what they do.

It's actually a mystery.

This is an example of technology being ahead of the science.

Often, scientific principles are discovered by studying technological innovations where we do something and we don't actually understand how it's done.

Okay!

That aside, I am deeply interested in technology broadly understood and how it can alter the way we think and construct the future.

Technology?

I don't mean just machines.

I mean things like custom.

I mean things like ideology.

I mean stories that we tell each other, and to remind ourselves of who we are.

These are all technology because, as I said, technology is just the manifestation of human mental patterns in the world.

So, that includes custom, that includes calendars, that includes maps, that includes methods and approaches to governance, to capitalism, as we spoke about.

Capitalism itself is a form of technology.

It does not exist on its own.

It's a human invention.

It's a form of human craft.

So, I like to think about technology and a lot of my work is motivated by the concern that we have a model culture in technology, in modernity.

So, I travel around the world quite a bit and I speak to a lot of folks from all around the world in different cultures.

And, one common refrain I hear is a sense of not feeling entirely at home in modernity.

Most of people who feel this way are people being marginalized in various ways from modernity, whether they're colonized, whether they have gender or sexual orientation and gender identities, cultural affinities, et cetera, that are excluded from being able to declare that they are the inventors of modernity.

Okay?

So, I speak to a lot of people who say, you know, "I have to go to school and learn about "science and politics in English.

"And then, when I speak about them in my own "indigenous language, I have to use translated terms that "reflect the mental patterns and experiences of people, "not my own.

"I feel like my own culture is merely preserved "and the very term of preservation implies "that it's no longer alive and no longer a living part of modernity."

And, that struck me as deeply important and deeply relevant.

You know, we have a modernity that is largely constructed by some, a small group of people, who have imposed their view on the rest of the world.

And so, we have a set of technologies, literally, with which we're supposed to reimagine the future.

Even the very language we use of science fiction is restrictive because, you know, different cultures are imagining the future in all sorts of ways, but only if you speak inviting a certain way would your stories be considered science fiction.

And, we need to think about why that is.

Why is it that certain stories are deemed "mythology" and merely "folk tale" and other stories are deemed "science fiction?"

It's, you know?

These genre boundaries are arbitrary and they are, they are imposed to validate a particular view of how technology ought to be used and wielded, and what is a proper form of technology.

So, a lot of my work can be described as punk work of various kinds.

You know, one of the genres I supposedly invented, is called "Silkpunk."

And, oftentimes, people use the "punk" suffix without thinking about what that actually means.

"Punk" is very important to me because punk is about not respecting what is already there and saying that "I don't really care what you think "the boundaries are.

I'm just going to defy it "and do things the way I want to.

"I'm gonna take something that is declared to be "for a different purpose and I will use it for a new purpose.

I do not care what you think."

That's sort of the core attitude of punkness.

Silkpunk is my attempt to sort of reinvent and reimagine modernity using alternative technologies.

So, for example, oftentimes when we speak about indigenous or so-called, you know, "non-Western" philosophy, we speak of them as though they are, they are not relevant in modernity.

They are just alternative ways in the past; not relevant.

Well, why?

Why is that even deemed, you know, necessary?

Techno-shamanism is a growing movement where we're trying to reinterpret and reintegrate traditional indigenous ways of knowing into modernity as a core part of living modernity; not merely something to be preserved.

So, punk is, involves a lot of my attempt as a technologist and as a thinker to reimagine and punkify traditional East Asian technologies broadly understood, which includes philosophies, actual engineering, political philosophy, et cetera.

And, trying to imagine how they can be part of the constitution of modernity and for the future.

A lot of times, we simply concede that there is a thing as "literature" and then there's "diverse literature".

And, we concede that there's "science fiction" and then "diverse science fiction."

I dislike that kind of framing because it implies that what is already there is somehow definitive, somehow the platonic idea to which others are supposed to aspire to.

I simply disagree.

It's much more interesting to me to say that science fiction as we have it, is merely one form of science fiction.

We are now simply seeing the fulfillment of what largely understood science fiction can be if we punkified the genre and bring all indigenous traditions and cultures, and voices and all alternative.

No, I don't even like "alternative" because that term, again, implies somehow what is already there is definitive.

ALL perspectives should be included in telling this ongoing story.

And, I view myself as part of that effort.

- "Punkify."

I like that!

Thank you so much.

I am gonna move on to the next panelist, but stay around.

We wanna talk more.

I'm gonna go to Isis Asare.

She's the CEO and founder of Sistah Scifi, and she's been having a super interesting conversation in the chat with Julia, one of our journalists.

But, Isis, welcome.

Thank you for being with us.

When we first talked-- I don't know if I can see you.

Hold on.

Where are you?

Oh, there you are!

(laughing) You're in one of the-- okay!

When we first talked, you quoted to me from the words of Octavia Butler, probably the best known African American science fiction writer.

And, by the way, she was from my backyard here in California and she's from Pasadena, a pretty racist and class-divided town at the time.

You said that she said, "Science fiction is a place where "she felt free as marginalized people-- free as marginalized people we have to write ourselves in."

Can you pick up on that and tell us how you see these genres: speculative fiction, sci-fi, fantasy from an African-American point of view, from your point of view, as someone who's promoting the work of many writers?

- Yeah, gladly.

I'm really happy to be here today.

I mean, I'm learning a lot from the other panelists.

So, the quote from Octavia Butler, 'cause I was paraphrasing, is "I was attracted to science fiction "because it was so wide open.

I was able to do anything "and there were no walls to hem you in.

"There was no human condition where you were stopped from examining."

And, when I read that quote, as a Black woman, as a queer person, you know, in the U.S., where, like, it feels like there are constantly so many constraints.

It's just like a magnet to science fiction where I can, like, drop the constraints of class or the limit, like, dealing with chauvinism and really explore.

For a lot of science fiction writers, in my experience, particularly for science fiction readers, it's less about escapism and it's more about the chance to develop practices and to look at themes to reignite your imagination.

And, like, a world that is constantly telling you, like, there is no space for that, or this is what is, and this is only what is.

I think a lot of the times, in my experience as a marginalized person, that is the first thing that oppression does.

It clamps your ability to, like, imagine and dream and to pursue something bigger.

So, that's-- I think that's why Octavia Butler was attracted to the genre.

- [Pilar] We can take another minute to ask the others to say something.

Isis?

I don't know.

Let's start with you, Ericka.

Say something to end or did you learn something incredible here today?

- I really was just kind of listening to everyone this afternoon, kind of for my position as, you know, being in the classroom.

You know, when I get the opportunity to teach science fiction, I'm wanting to help my students branch out beyond what their expectation might have been about the sorts of texts that we might read.

And so, this panel has been a really lovely way for me to just, again, continue along that path because I think it's the right path that I want them to be on for thinking about what kind of incredible stories that we can create when we open up this genre in terms of what it is.

And so, that's been, for me, a real benefit of just sitting and listening to everyone speak this afternoon, is just hearing about that.

- Thank you.

Isis?

- Yeah, totally agree.

There was a lot of conversation and questions about Afrofuturism in "Black Panther."

If you want more media in this space, Netflix is launching "African Folktales" and reimagined short stories so you get more cultural context.

And, some of the themes that you saw in "Black Panther," there's also "Neptune Frost," which is a Afrofuturist, independent film by Saul Williams, which is set in a fictional, southern African country.

It's all in English subtitles.

I learned so much, so thank you for inviting me.

- Libia.

Last words?

- I learned a lot, actually!

(chuckles) So- - [Pilar] So did I, so did I!

- Hopefully, hopefully, there is more Latin American and Spanish sci-fi written, translated to English, translated to English.

[background music] Or, you could all learn Spanish!

It's not that difficult.

You just have to open more-- you just have to open your mouth!

(laughs) - That's true!

Ken?

- It's been a real pleasure to speak with all of you and to learn from you.

It was really cool.

I love this conversation and I hope that I get opportunities to speak with all of you more in the future.

'Cause that-- this was really wonderful.

- I know we're at time, but this is something I was about to say and then Frank said it in the chat.

There isn't Native American representation on the panel.

Great authors in that space are Rebecca Roanhorse and Cherie Dimaline.

There's Darcie Little Badger, whose work crosses both literature and a lot of them have written for television shows.

So, yeah.

That is something that we didn't get to speak to today, but there are lot-- - We're gonna have to follow up.

We're gonna-- we'll do that.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

I'm so thankful to everyone that called in from all over the place.

[background music] I'm really excited that this came out the way it did.

It was wonderful.

Sandy?

I don't know if you wanna say hi, bye.

- Just very inspired by the speakers and by our wonderful media colleagues who give us this platform to explore issues that we feel so curious about, but, like me, barely know what we don't know.

So, thank you for helping bring us along.

♪