Future Spaces of Power - (Critical Futures: Creative Interventions and Revolutionary Possibilities) (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Future Spaces of Power explores political, cultural, and societal narratives of future space(s) on a global scale to complicate the cultural logic of systemic futures that exist outside the boundaries of dominant political imaginaries.

Contributors critically engage with alternative visions found in literature, film, and other cultural artifacts that encourage us to either live with or escape from the systemic conditions of neoliberalism and late capitalism and consider what these alternative visions might do - or fail to do - in combating anti-democratic futures, environmental degradation, and new forms of imperialism. Through these analyses, the volume collectively argues that anti-postmodern and postmodern readings of future spaces overlook the everyday lived experiences of certain bodies - including chronic health problems, effects from systemic racism, and other experiences of insecurity, fear, and death in the face of institutionalized violence - by disregarding differential experiences of time within different spatial contexts.

Contributors suggest that critiques of narratives occurring within and about virtual and metaspaces, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and even the colonization of outer space can provide critical insights concerning global futures and our perceptions of space and time, especially as they inform how we should live in the present amid environmental destruction, information capitalism, neoliberalism, and the remaining infrastructures of colonialism. Ultimately, this book interrogates how a variety of media shape and inform our understanding and assumptions about conceptualizations of future space(s) as it demonstrates how governmentality eliminates and regulates surplus bodies - both overtly and covertly - through the technological, spatial, discursive, and temporal management of space.

Review Quotes

"This one-of-a-kind text asks us to seriously consider the outer limits-both spatial and conceptual-of neoliberal capitalism and its colonial ventures. By bringing together the 'final frontiers' of digital and outer spaces, their explorations and expansions, and, crucially, the political and cultural logics that underpin these quests, the contributions featured in this volume provide important critical insights into the study of contemporary neoliberalism and imperialism. Fun, thought-provoking, and relevant to current political and social concerns, Future Spaces of Power has much to offer to students and scholars of political theory, international relations, and cultural studies." --François Debrix, Professor of Political Science, Virginia Tech, USA

"Future Spaces of Power is a theory-rich and critically diverse collection that pushes science fiction studies into new frontiers in postcolonial research. This book sets the tone for studying the cultural and political economics of outer space in 21st century." --Liz W. Faber, Associate Professor of English and Communication, Dean College, USA

About the Author

Caroline Alphin is Instructor of English at Radford University and Instructor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, USA.

E. Leigh McKagen is Instructor in the Department of History at Virginia Tech, USA.

Shelby E. Ward is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tusculum University, USA.