Same planet, different worlds: fictions, futures, fandoms, and the practice of worldbuilding

Dr. Paul Graham Raven is a writer, researcher and critical futures consultant, whose work is concerned with how the stories we tell about times to come can shape the lives we end up living.

This lecture will begin with the notion that all futures may be considered as narratives. By borrowing some basic concepts and models from narratology - and applying some decidedly un-academic metaphors - we can then come to see futures as *worlds*.

Understanding futures as worlds allows us to understand that every future is plural: that a world can be (re)written from multiple perspectives, for good and for ill. This in turn offers us a new model for understanding politics in a hypermediated age, from a perhaps unexpected direction: fandom.

Understanding futures as worlds and politics as fandoms may not be an optimistic understanding, but I will argue that it is a hopeful one - an understanding that returns to each and every one of us the freedom and the responsibility to (re)imagine our futures, together.

Dr. Paul Graham Raven is also an author and critic of science fiction, an occasional journalist and essayist, and a collaborator with designers and artists. He currently lives in Malmö with a cat, some guitars, and too many books. / paulgrahamraven.com