AP/ANTH 4400 3.00 Speculative Futures: The Anthropology of What Might-Be

Speculative Futures explores the prospective and yet unknown condition of the might-be. In this course we engage with articulations, expressions, and representations of the (im)possible, (extra)ordinary, and (un)imaginable—or speculative—futures that diverse individuals, groups, communities, and societies are envisaging, dreaming of, composing, conjuring, striving for, imagining, and bringing into being. Our listenings, viewings, readings, and participating will draw upon works produced by anthropologists, artists, curators, writers of speculative fiction and non-fiction, and others. The course will also host a series of guest presenters. Our areas of exploration will be Indigenous Futurisms, African Futurisms, Afro-American Futurisms, Arab/Gulf/Muslim Futurisms, Asian/Sino/Indo/South Asian/Adivasi Futurisms, MesoAmerican/LatinX Futurisms. Some of the key concepts/themes we consider for critical and comparative exploration include “slipstream”, “futurity”, “utopia”, “survivance”, “contact”, “skin thinking”, “temporality”, “Anthropocene”, “apocalypse”, “alien”, “cyborg”, “technoOrientalism”, “dreaming”, “fractals”, “Sankofa”, and “fantastic”. Our aim is to think anthropologically, creatively, and in solidarity with the many individuals and groups we meet in the course who are undertaking deeply critical and imaginative labour — to walk alongside them in the face of their past and present extinctions and possible future ones. As a fellow traveler, you are asked to raise your voice and articulate your concerns and speculations about the future, and you are invited to work collectively and collaboratively to craft a multi-modal expression of the future yet-to-be.

Winter 2024

Course Director: Z. Hirji - zhirji@yorku.ca