The Librarian, The Computer, The Android, and Big Data

By Nichole Nomura and Quinn Dombrowski

Introduction

“Computer, count some words”

“The computer” – a character unnamed save its technological form – is one of the most enduring characters of Star Trek, spanning multiple generations of hardware and software over a 250-year period ranging from Enterprise in the 2150s to Picard in 2399. The prominence of the computer as an information agent, and the repeated deployment of “the archive” as a mysterious space of potential discovery^[1] has the effect of overshadowing a more familiar figure from our own era: the librarian. In this article, we take the librarian as the starting point for understanding the information landscape of Star Trek. What, in the universes of Star Trek, do librarians do, and how do those activities relate to the scope of librarianship in the real 21st century? We find the visible librarian pushed into a stereotyped corner, where a large swath of activities associated in particular with modern data librarians simply disappear from view. In this future landscape, it is as if data organizes itself – or at least, we are led to assume as much. We see the utopian embodiment of this process through Data, who both has access to these vast knowledge stores, and a positronic brain to deploy that data and interact with the world at a level where he is deemed sentient. But another form that data takes is “the computer”, which is narratively relegated to the background as a service worker, however complex that service may be upon closer interrogation. As one of the services computers perform, often hyper-invisibly, in the Star Trek universe is translation, we conclude with a case study of how translation depends not only on advanced computation, but an enormous amount of data – including cultural and linguistic information we might assume resists datafication. We pair examples from a few novels with a corpus of 774 Star Trek novels, using digital humanities text analysis methods to draw together those examples – much as one might do by calling upon the computer.

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Deconstructing the myths and stories we tell ourselves about the future

By Linna Fredström, Laura Pereira, Simon West, Andrew Merrie and Joost Vervoort

Examples from a small city in the middle of a Swedish forest

‘We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.’ Ursula K Le Guin

Intro and motivation for study

A growing body of research is calling for radical transformation of society to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change and create a more sustainable and just future (Adger et al., 2009; Westley et al., 2011; Kates, Travis and Wilbanks, 2012; Patterson et al., 2017; Fazey, Moug, et al., 2018). Such transformation will disrupt political and economic structures as well as knowledge and value systems, and require fundamentally changing “norms, values, and beliefs; rules and practices, such as laws, procedures, and customs; and the distribution and flow of power, authority, and resources” (Moore et al., 2014).

Many researchers studying such transformations are also acknowledging that their own role must change: rather than simply producing knowledge, they are beginning to actively participate in making knowledge actionable, with the explicit goal of enabling radical change (Cornell et al., 2013; Sala and Torchio, 2019; Fazey et al., 2020). In this new task, the social sciences can offer valuable insights on how to approach the value-laden and political dimensions of using science to bring about change (Wittmayer and Schäpke, 2014; Fazey, Schäpke, et al., 2018; Vervoort and Gupta, 2018; Woroniecki et al., 2019; Miller and Wyborn, 2020; Scoones et al., 2020; West et al., 2020). Critical social theory and critical perspectives in particular are believed to offer tools for sustainability transformation research (Death, 2014; Lövbrand et al., 2015; Stirling, 2015; Blythe et al., 2018). Critical social theory focuses on illuminating and challenging the power dynamics and hidden biases of science and knowledge itself. This focus on reflexive and critical perspectives is now gaining traction within the field of transformation toward sustainability. Conversely, researchers within the field of sustainability are reaching conclusions that point toward the need for critical theory. It’s becoming clear that to enable transformation to a more sustainable and just society we must be willing to challenge not only political and economic systems, but also the value and knowledge systems that brought us to this point in history (Stirling, 2015, 2019; Gottschlich and Bellina, 2017; Fazey et al., 2020).

Scenarios have become a frequently used approach to explore radically different futures and to identify transformative potential in the present (Pereira et al., 2019). As a tool, scenario development is versatile and allows for transdisciplinary exploration, combining scientific, local, practical, and emotional insights (Oteros-Rozas et al., 2015; Merrie et al., 2018; Pereira et al., 2018; Sweeney, 2018; Wangel et al., 2019). Scenario exercises in times of impending climate crisis can be a way to practice imagining the future, and through this practice to see potentialities in the here and now. We need new understandings of the world, new stories: alternatives to both climate catastrophe and naïve never-ending growth narratives. But how do we make space for such visions?

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Beyond the Library as Utopia

Beyond the Library as Utopia: Conditional Belonging, Representative Collections and Science Fiction Librarianship

Gina Bastone and Adriana Cásarez

Introduction

When we tell strangers or new acquaintances that we are librarians, we hear reactions like “Oh, how wonderful that you get to read books all day!” Sometimes, we might get the response, “You’re doing such important work. The public library changed my life as a kid!”

While we much prefer the latter response, both reflect a stereotype of libraries as utopian institutions necessary for a healthy democracy and immune from criticism. Some people even hold libraries in holy regard, comparing librarians to clergy with a vocational calling, as Fobazi Ettarh notes in her groundbreaking article on vocational awe.^[1] For many readers and SF fans, the library is a sacred place where knowledge is preserved and where they have treasured memories of encountering their favorite books for the first time or discovering their favorite SF authors.

We share a love for books, particularly SF stories, but we have a realistic view of libraries beyond these utopian visions. Margaret Atwood discusses the paradoxical nature of a similar utopia/dystopia binary in her book, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. She says, “[W]ithin each utopia, a concealed dystopia; within each dystopia a concealed utopia. …”^[2] It is from this tension that we draw similarities in libraries. Our idealized values of unfettered, egalitarian access to information and strong nostalgia for the love of books have a shadow side, especially when interrogated around white supremacy and patriarchy.

In her article “Concealing White Supremacy through Fantasies of the Library: Economies of Affect at Work”, Michele R. Santamaria describes “The Library” as “a fantasy space that denies its role in white supremacy.”^[3] Santamaria builds on Gina Schlesselman-Tarango’s work on the concept of cuteness and how it insidiously reinforces the status quo in libraries. Schlesselman-Tarango says,

“By promising safety through gesturing to a pre-technological past, books preclude exposure to and engagement with the nasty realities of contemporary society. Inasmuch as they are associated with books, libraries too might be understood to provide an outlet for this sentimental yearning. …”^[4]

We see library nostalgia as a crucial underpinning to the romanticized utopian stereotype of libraries, yet Santamaria, Schlessleman-Tarango, and Ettarh all point to the dystopian shadow side of our shared profession. We will explore this further as we unpack our collecting philosophy.

Additionally, Santamaria’s use of “The Library” denotes a sense of institutional authority and is a direct reference to librarian, writer, and poet Jorge Luis Borges’ concept of the “library as a universe”.^[5] In particular, Borges’ famous short story The Library of Babel comes to mind. The Library of Babel has dystopian elements, such as meaningless books that are never accessed, used, or even seen by the librarians doomed to wander its endless halls.^[6] This Borgesian “library as universe” may seem the product of a dark fantasy far from the reality of working in libraries, but it is a helpful metaphor for challenging the equally unrealistic stereotypes underpinning library nostalgia and vocational awe.

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Beastly Modernisms reviewed by Paul March-Russell

Beastly Modernisms: The Figure of the Animal in Modernist Literature and Culture, eds. Saskia McCracken and Alex Goody (Edinburgh University Press, 2023)

Reviewed by Paul March-Russell

At face value, this collection of essays may not seem to be of immediate interest to the sf reader. It is primarily concerned with the development of Animal Studies – a sub-discipline that has already been significantly explored in relation to sf in the work of Sherryl Vint, Joan Gordon, and others – with reference to literary modernism, a diverse movement already noted for its challenge to traditional notions of identity and individual autonomy. The potential, though, for creative overlaps between modernism, sf and Animal Studies is already indicated by the fact that one of the co-editors, Alex Goody, was a keynote speaker at the 2019 Corroding the Now conference at Birkbeck College, London. Seen through a science-fictional lens, the encounter between human and non-human animals, the slippages between them, and their mutual affinities and kinships immediately invoke the First Contacts and uncanny relations between humans and aliens which are the stuff of genre sf. As the introduction’s reference to Jorge Luis Borges and Karen Eckersley’s chapter on Leonora Carrington make clear, imagined bestiaries are common to both Animal Studies and speculative fiction.

Without seeking to be a guide, the introduction nonetheless touches upon many of the key moments in the evolution of Animal Theory: from Peter Singer’s pioneering Animal Liberation (1975) and Donna Haraway’s ‘cyborg manifesto’ (1985) to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming animal’ (1982) and Jacques Derrida’s pivotal essay ‘The Animal That Therefore I Am’ (2002). The introduction also registers many of the other posthuman thinkers whose ideas have contributed both to Animal Studies and this volume in particular; from Giorgio Agamben and Rosi Braidotti to Michel Foucault and Cary Wolfe. The editors however, beginning their account with an exchange between Djuna Barnes and James Joyce (two modernists in exile, both of whom would flit between the centres and margins of the modernist canon), emphasise the affinities between Animal Studies, the revaluation of women’s writing and the decolonising of the curriculum. All such practices foreground and deconstruct the historic imposition of borders, the arbitrary gatekeeping that has characterised academic protocols and the maintenance of cultural shibboleths. To that end, the editors also note the collapsing boundary between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures, an elision that not only permits the entry of sf into the conversation, but which would also have appealed to such modernists as Barnes (boxing fan and purveyor of crime fiction) and Joyce (publican’s son, cineaste, and Anita Loos devotee).

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Ambitopia: Futures Beyond the Binary

By Redfern Jon Barrett

We live in a golden age for speculative fiction. Futurist novels, shows, and movies have achieved a cultural saturation which would have been difficult to foresee just a couple decades ago, largely thanks to our increasingly unpredictable and perilous world. But rather than simply doling out temporary escapist relief, speculative stories help us comprehend our own cultures and their problems. Often, contemporary issues are approached via one side of a binary: either they’re exaggerated, showing us their destructive potential via a dystopia, or else they’re understood via their solution, producing a utopia.

So far, so obvious. But why are utopia and dystopia the genres we use to exaggerate and comprehend our own societies? Human communities are not structured according to a simplistic binary, instead being dependent on ever-changing laws, ideas, and social conventions. We know that truth ultimately lies in shades of grey, so why do black and white narratives still predominate in speculative fiction? Is this binary still useful as we wade deeper into the 21^st century? What alternatives are out there?

Binary Problems

A few years ago the speculative writer Laurie Penny and I were interviewed on the subject of utopia. Penny, who is also a prominent journalist, posited a serious problem with utopias: namely, that the desire to create an idealised society has been used to justify numerous atrocities throughout our own history. Considering the many massacres committed in the name of a perfect world – theocratic, eugenicist, nationalist, agrarian, or Communist – it’s a difficult point to argue with. In Penny’s words, “true utopia is fascism”, underscored by a rigid set of idealised rules, unable to ever truly change or adapt; at best stagnant, and at worst, totalitarian.

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Flights of fantasy

By Janet Philp

Fantasy tales are littered with beings that can fly, whether in video games like The Legend of Zelda¹ and Skyrim², classic films such as Prince Vultan’s hawk men in Flash Gordon³, dozens of Marvel and DC heroes, TV series, blockbusters like the Harry Potter⁴ series and the classic Dungeons and Dragons⁵. The fantasy creatures of China Mieville provide us with a multitude of winged and armed creatures whilst Le Guin provides us with winged entities of a more recognisable feline form (Le Guin, 1999).

Characters who can fly capture our imagination. They are seen as having the ability to rise above and they often have power and God-like appearances. In this article we will be looking at the anatomy of flight and whether it can help us understand how these beings can fly, or whether it is best left to special effects.

As we are looking at self-propelled flight, we will ignore characters who fly by some means of alternative propulsion such as Ironman⁶, Thor⁷ and Mary Poppins⁸. We shall ignore those that fly using a cape such as Dr Strange⁹and potentially Superman¹⁰ and we will limit our exploration to those creatures who present with anatomical wings that propel flight as opposed to fins or flaps that allow for gliding.

In the history of life on Earth there have only been four classes of creatures who have possessed the ability to truly fly. These are the pterosaurs, insects, birds, and bats.

Pterosaurs have been extinct for millions of years and so how they flew can only be speculated upon. Insects, due to their exoskeletons have a different anatomy and flight patterns which are not often represented in fantasy literature, although accurately depicted in the new Dune movie¹¹. This article will concentrate on bats and birds and how they can inform our understanding (Evans 2020) of the flight of fantasy creatures.

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Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds

Reviewed by Rebecca Hankins

Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds by Jayna Brown. Duke University Press, 2021. Paperback 212 pg. $24.95. ISBN: 978-1478010548

Brown’s Black Utopias is one of the most scholarly and comprehensive works exploring Black Utopian futures. Very apt for a Covid-19 pandemic period that has seen the initial overwhelming loss of Black and Brown lives. In light of this mass death, Brown’s study asks — and through this work, answers — “What might Black futures mean, and how might we challenge our imaginations to create futures that are not only different to what we know and what we expect, but even allows us to evolve beyond our physical existence? Packed into these pages is a narrative that encompasses Afro-futurism, death, theology, spirituality, music, philosophers, science fiction, fantasy, and gender, stories that had to be absorbed, analyzed, and contemplated before beginning the review. There were layers after layers of new ideas packed into a narrative that also centered the stories of Black women’s religious and cultural beings in which they constantly sought a physical and metaphysical utopia within an Afro-futurist and Afro-centric framework.

Cultural critic Mark Dery is credited with coining the term Afro-futurism as “techno cultural aesthetic that blends science fictional imagery, technology, philosophy, and the imagery, languages, and cultures of Africa and the worldwide African diaspora.” Scholar Yusuf Nuruddin also notes that Afrofuturism “includes black science fiction or Afrocentric science fiction, more broadly defined as African American signification about culture, technology and things to come” (or, in the case of alternative histories, “things that might have come” from a reconfigured past). Brown’s adds to our understanding of Afro-futurism that undergirds her work: Brown defines Afro-futurism as “a program for recovering the histories of counter-futures […] most notable for resisting disciplinary boundaries” (p17). Moreover, combined with this Afro-centric, interdisciplinary attitude toward futures and counter-futures, the genre of Afro-futurism centers works of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction created by African Americans, Africans and the African diaspora. Afro-centricity embodies works that are often critical writings that focus on race, the institution of slavery, class, gender, oppression, inequality, and sexuality, all woven throughout Brown’s book.

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2-3-74: Philip K. Dick and His Far-Out Exegesis

By Carrie Melmouth

The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools.

I was introduced to the work of Philip K. Dick by my (then) boyfriend (ten years ago) when I was twenty-three. His sitting room was lined with bookcases, and from it, one day, he pulled a book of Philip K. Dick short stories. ‘Beyond Lies the Wub’ is not the introduction to the work of PKD I would have chosen for myself. It explores none of the themes that interest me in PKD. The wub is a ‘huge dirty pig’. And the pig doesn’t want to be eaten. I was bored.

*“Really, Captain,” the wub said. “I suggest we talk of other matters.”*

PKD was forty-five years old in 1974. He had sold his first short story, ‘Roog’ in 1951 and his first novel, Solar Lottery, in 1955. Both had been simultaneously pulpy and ontological. He had won the Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle (which also bores me) in 1963. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch had not won the Nebula Award in 1965 (losing out to Frank Herbert’s Dune). Later, in what came to be known as The Exegesis, he wrote that his ‘mystical experiences start[ed] in ’63 when’ he ‘saw the “Palmer Eldritch” visage [in] the sky’. For all the plurality of his ‘mystical experiences’, though, when people do talk about PKD’s mystical experiences, what they talk about is 2-3-74. In the 1986 17th issue of Weirdo, comix cartoonist Robert Crumb illustrated a (necessarily reductive) account of 2-3-74.

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Beyond Gender Collective: Abolish the Family!

Abolish the Family by Sophie Lewis

Review by Beyond Gender

“Abolish the family? You might as well abolish gravity.” (1)

It is with these words, spoken by an imagined, horrified reader, that Sophie Lewis begins their new book. From the outset, the magnitude of the task ahead for family abolitionists is clear. To abolish the family is to attempt something frightening, something unthinkable, something which requires one to challenge the fundamental rules which bind our world together. It is, then, no surprise that again and again Lewis reaches for science fiction (SF) to articulate this vision of a world beyond the family. For an SF creator, to abolish a so-called law of nature is not a ridiculous proposition which can be used to embarrass utopians into giving up on their belief that “things could be different” (4, emphasis in original). It is rather a serious undertaking which involves an investigation of those forces which hold life as we know it together, the willingness to experiment with those same forces, and the determination to remake the world, however alien what comes next might be. This is the spirit in which we, the Beyond Gender research collective, approach Lewis’ book. We are a group of SF fans, researchers and creators who are committed to tapping into the radical potential of SF to undo the supposed naturalness of such myths as the binary model of gender, cis- and heteronormativity and, now, the family.

“Abolish the family? You might as well abolish gravity.”

“Okay then, might as well.”

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Into The Spider-Verse and (Side)Setting the Scene for Social Change

By Christy Dena

This piece contains mild spoilers and mild mind scrambling if you haven’t seen the 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Margaret Thatcher had something to say about Miles Morales, so too did narrative theorist Seymour Chatman, as well as those fighting the idea of a “half-black, half-Hispanic” Spider-Man (Rose, 2018). It wouldn’t be a stretch of my tingly senses to say these folks share the belief that there is no alternative, there is a single, right, way. Thankfully, the opening sequence of the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (screenplay by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman, story by Phil Lord), sets the scene for social change with some cool emancipatory narrative devices.

It’s the kind of interventionist work that needs to be done because audiences have been trained to approach their story experiences, and much of life, with closed thinking. As part of his work on The Psychology of Closed Mindedness, social psychologist Arie Kruglanski explains that ‘the need for closure is the desire to have certainty, to have a definite answer to a question and avoid ambiguity’ (Kruglanski, 2021). A consequence of this is we can ‘jump to conclusions about others, and to form impressions based on limited and incomplete evidence’ (Kruglanski, 2004, 2). That character is the killer! Capitalism is the answer!

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher found it hard to imagine alternatives, and encouraged everyone else to find it hard. Thatcher is associated with the slogan ‘There is No Alternative’ — which refers to the neoliberal logic she popularised. In a speech, Thatcher not only said ‘there’s no real alternative,’ but also said ‘What’s the alternative? To go on as we were before?’ (Thatcher, 1980). As if the future is a long, single, inevitable, line of progression and the only choice is to stick with what isn’t working or proceed in the only available direction. Do nothing and crumble, or do the only change available.

In Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher connected the belief that there is no alternative to capitalism with dystopian films and novels that don’t imagine ‘different ways of living’ (Fisher, 2009, 2). Instead of representing or prefiguring different ways of living together, many works of fiction depict the destruction of the world by unbridled capitalism. Even our fiction jumps to conclusions.

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