SCIENCE FICTION AND SUSTAINABILITY
PUBLIC LECTURE ON PLANET TALKS IMPRI 17/11/2020
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 1 SAS 2020 What makes a good Science / Dystopian Fiction work?
• Dystopia (antonym of Utopia) – unfair, injustice, postapocalyptic
– Themes – Religion, Psychology, Culture, Economy, Society, Environment, Ethics, Technology but going beyond this and the uncharted territories in these themes
– Create something which is not plausible at all
– Create a thesis and an antithesis – the more the dialectics the larger is the dystopian element
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 2 SAS 2020 The Process
• Respond to an injustice, a situation and then personalise it • Then take it to a set of all plausible outcomes • Create outcomes and counteroutcomes • Create Plots and Counter Plots • I think of a situation and express it into my music and then play notes and counter notes and then I can see characters and plots for a certain situation and then I create a world through melodies and counter melodies, rhythm and counter rythms
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 3 SAS 2020 How important is research and study to deliver a believable and convincing work of fiction ?
• Extremely important • It is a must • Instances of a book – Dystopia: Natural History (2017) – Cleares • We (1921) • Animal Farm, 1984 (black market to produce select materialistic goods, domination of the state on individuals) • Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – Role of parents are forgotten, Children are born automatically – Society and class structures are reconstructed – Fondly Fahrenheit – people going to rural society for consumption • Joanna Russ (Female Man), 1919 (Sultana’s Dream) - Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain – Both are about how an imaginary society is happening centering about power shifts to women from men and different gender types
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 4 SAS 2020 Science / Dystopian fiction novels can challenge readers to think differently about current social and political climates, and can inspire action. • Yes • It is like a parabola which opens up possibilities and helps us to see future with different possibilities • Even if you don’t add the post apocalyptic element to dystopia, anything which is not fair or injustice can also motivate us to think of a dystopia and create an action towards the utopia • So dystopia creates an action towards utopia • When utopia is not attained, a state of dystopia can again arise for further utopia • So utopia is justice and dystopia is somewhat the law (which needs to be practised to attain the dream of justice)
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 5 SAS 2020 What is Sustainability?
• ‘’Sustain’’ and ‘’Ability’’
• Sustain to be Able or Ability to Sustain?
• Is there a difference between ‘Children’ and ‘Adult’ Science Fiction, from a sustainability standpoint?
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 6 SAS 2020 Why Children Science Fiction and Sustainability?
• Because it is – “A pot of green and a pot of orange paint spilled on the floor and forms a murky brown together which does not belong to any pot but who cant distinguish that is also a fool” – (McDowell 58, Nodelman, Hidden Adult 188)..
• Because as Roger Sale wryly says – “Everyone knows what children science fiction literature is until one is asked to define it”!!
• Trust it or not, Sustainability is exactly having these two above characteristics!!!!
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 7 SAS 2020 So why the idea of merging children science fiction and sustainability emerged?
1. Can depict a schematic moral view of life (Mcdowell, Nodelman)
2. Active (full of action) and ruminant (full of introspection, reflection and liberation) at the same time
3. Simple, formulaic as well as abstract, open ended at the same time
4. A dialectics between a small and large vision within the storytelling
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 8 SAS 2020 To do that – What was essential is to understand the history
And hence the historical exploration started …
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 9 SAS 2020 Sustainability in Mythology and Early Scripture Context? • Lessons from Old Testament – the ship of Noah - A pair of animals to secure a sustainable lifecycle • Lessons from Mahabharata – Khandava Dahan? • Lessons from Indian scriptures like the Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita, Manusmriti, Arthashastra – Sustainability is about - human beings, make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant by imbibing culture, common goals, shared values, commitment, communication
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 10 SAS 2020 My Journey began with my vernacular which is absolutely essential and critical for everyone to understand sustainability
• Jagadananda Roy's Shukra Bhraman (Travels to Venus) • Hemlal Dutta as one of the earliest Bengali science fiction writers for his Rohosso (The Mystery) • 1882 in the pictorial magazine Bigyan Dorpon (Mirror of Science) • Jagadish Chandra Bose - Kuntol Keshori, Palatak Tufan (Runaway Cyclone) • Roquia Sakhawat Hussain (Begum Rokeya), an early Islamic feminist, wrote Sultana's Dream – a world where role reversal happens between men and women • Premendra Mitra wrote the first novel, Kuhoker Deshe (In the Land of Mystery). Hemendra Kumar Ray wrote Meghduter Morte Agomon • Qazi Abdul Halim's Mohasunner Kanna (Tears of the Cosmos), Tomader Jonno Valobasa (Love For You All), • In 1997, Moulik, the first and longest-running Bangladeshi science fiction magazine, was first published, with famous cartoonist Ahsan Habib as the editor • Nasim Sahnic is a promising young science fiction writer in Bangladesh. His latest science fiction books like Genetic code, Robopsychologist, Sundarbone Truti, Coxsbazarer Cossop are very famous to young generation • OTHER THAN THIS – Tagore, Narayan Sanyal, Adrish Bardhan, Bibhutibhushan, Sukumar Ray, Leela Majumdar, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Syed Mustafa Siraj, Samarjit Kar, Anish Deb, Biswajit Ganguly, Siddhartha Ghosh, Suman Sen (Sarpa Manav: Nagmoni [4] Rohosyo, Ajana Sima: The X Boundary#PlanetTalks), IMPRIRajesh India Water Basu Portaland TERI Abhijnan Roychowdhury Satyajit 11 Ray are well know mainstream writers whoSAS 2020are popular and everyone reads them Science Fiction Magazine in Bengali (happened in 2016)
• Publication of Kalpabiswa (কল্পবিশ্ব) (www.kalpabiswa.com), first ever Science Fiction and Fantasy themed Bengali web- magazine for adult readers
• Once the vernacular is known – 1%, let me explore to the world literature which I did to understand sustainability
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 12 SAS 2020 Historical Narrative
Name Year Author Genre Content Utopia 1516 Thomas More Scientific Voyages Imaginary voyage to an unknown land
Somnium 1632 Johannes Kepler Lunar voyage How earth’s motion looks from moon Gullivers 1726 Jonathan Swift Voyage to an imaginary Fiction on gulliver’s Travels land experiences in a Lilliput land
Frankenstein 1818 Mary Shelley Limits of scientific Innovation in the realm of understanding and science rather than humanity’s supernatural relationship to created beings Critique of After 1818 Paul Alkon Defined as narrative Science to create myths science fiction use of science to allowing novel points of view create myths to bring in novel view points Amazing 1926 Hugo Gernsback Scientifiction to Codified an already existing stories Science fiction literary form which included fantastic voyages, utopia, disaster fictions, invention #PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 13 SAS 2020 tales, scientific romances Historical Narrative
Name Year Author Genre Content
Future Shock 1970 Alvin Toffler Contemporary western cultures Technological and social change grappling with rapidity of acting as a centre point of technological and social change change Pulp Magazines 1940 John W Campbell Focusing on pulp science fiction Science fiction culture
Le Zombie 1941 Bob Tucker Relationship between Practicing science fiction enthusiastic group of fans and emergence of science fiction in magazines Brave New 1932 Aldous Huxley Science fiction practice of generic Sites of both high and low World attribution culture The Time 1895 Jules Verne Polarization of humans into two Vision of an alien and an Machine bleak species alienating planet Some fiction Over a long H.G. Wells Focuses on philosophical and Understanding of ethical choices works range of social implications of scientific and perceptions of material time discoveries world changes over time
M.S Found in a 1833 Edgar Allen Poe Range of engagements with the Transmutation into the Bottle sublime nature comforting sense of wonder The Sentinel 1951 Arthur C Clarke Human confrontation with a Evolutionary time scale of a #PlanetTalks IMPRImanufactured India Water than Portal a natural TERI technology 14 objectSAS 2020 Historical Narrative
Name Year Author Genre Content Argosy 1882 – Story Sensationalist novels Science fiction with a special magazine 1978 Magazine culture The Strand 1891 – Story Mixture of story types Transformed market place with different 1950 Magazine story mixes The War of 1898 H.G. Wells Alien invasion Centred around anthropocentrism Worlds The New 1624 Francis Scientific discoveries A world powerful than ours Atlantis Bacon demonstrate our lack of empire over matter The War of 1898 (first H G Wells Challenges the way of Martians are doing the same thing as done the worlds hardcover understanding the world. by British in their colonies. Comparisons are ) and The superior imperialist drawn with extinction of bison and dodo by serialised British race is outweighed human activities, extinction of Tasmanians first in by Martian technology by European immigrants. Questions the 1897 anthropocentric view of religion, Christianity which poses humanity above nature, whereas science has no special interest in homo sapiens. Gives us a more heterogenic view of the world making humans conscious of future given life exists in Mars. #PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI Ralph 1911 – Gernsback Adventure story of Ralph Ralph moves from one future technology to15 SAS 2020 124C41+ 1912 saving his girl in an the other viz. television, video phone, solar adventurous journey energy, synthetic food, spaceflight Historical Narrative
Name Year Author Genre Content Martian 1934 Stanley G. How to communicate with Questions the paradigm of human and alien Odyssey Weinbaum aliens friendship in an alien landscape of Mars by questioning whether reason or technology should decide such friendship A Door Into 1986 Joan Understanding off Rational differentiation between Ocean Slonczweski planetary life ecofeminist and technorationalist approach to understand planetary life Astounding 1937 John W. Bringing in technology for Technocratic rationalism to replace Stories to Campbell explaining nuances of emotions to explain the social world Astounding social life Science Fiction Who goes there 1938 John W. Explores the value of Discovery of a long buried spaceship in Campbell science fiction conceived as Antartica and the crisis amongst men a rationalist worldview stationed in the research camp where alien body is discovered. The conflict between nature and human science is explained when the alien starts taking the form of any life with which it has contact That only a 1948 Judith Merril Intersections of public A mother writing a letter to her husband mother science and domestic life posted in a secret station related to nuclear #PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portalwarfare TERI about possibilities of mutation in 16 SAS 2020 her baby More Narratives for the Birth of Lucy
• Liar (1941) - Isaac Asimov - Misunderstandings launched by a mind reading robot - deception by robot and misunderstandings between human race • Runaround (1942) - Isaac Asimov - The law of robotics - A robot should not harm a human being or through inaction will not allow the human being to harm the robot. A robot will follow the orders of a human being unless and until there is a defiance of the first law. • Reason (1942) - Isaac Asimov - The conflict between reason and logic. In a space station, the scientists try to convince a robot that he has been created by the humans and the robot disagrees to acknowledge that fact. • Forbidden Planet (1956) - Wilcox - The robot refuses to attack a monster as a human being is behind the monster attack and this follows the discourse of robotic law of Asimov • The Female Man (1966) - Joanna Russ - DNA derived artificial lover who scares another woman
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 17 SAS 2020 More Narratives for the Birth of Lucy
• Culture Novels (1987 - 2012) - Ian.M. Banks - AI Mind Citizens in human relationships • We Who Are About To (1976) - Joanna Russ - Talks of a civilization where women are reduced to the role of breeders • Fondly Fahrenheit (1954) - Alfred Bester - It comments on what science fiction has overlooked due to its attachment to rational explanation. The story is about the master slave relationship where the master creates an android and the android starts to trouble and the master has to change his identities again and again due to that. Finally, a point comes where the master decides to sell the android when the android makes the claim that he cant be sold following the law of Robotics. Projection of the master's mind onto the slave - it is not clear. Is the android a subconscious depiction of the psychology of the master. • Childhood's End (1953) - Arthur C. Clarke - Alien Overlords come to the earth and owing to their superior technology they become Gods to humans and establish a peaceful, equal society on earth. The overlords create a new set of telepathic, human species who work for a better future. So the human civilization's doubts of colonization here progresses #PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 18 towards a betterment. SAS 2020 More Narratives for the Birth of Lucy
• The Liberation of Earth (1953) - William Tenns - also highlights about alien invasion - Two alien invasion - one trying for betterment and the other not for betterment and human race caught in between two superpowers of space - just like USSR and US. • The Day Earth Stood Still (1951) - Wise - Is about a nuclear warfare race and its impact on environment • Aleutian Trilogy, White Queen (1991), North Wind (1994), Phoenix Cafe (1997) - Gwyeneth Jones - are all about the complex exploration of cultural difference and misunderstandings arising from not able to accommodate the cultural differences. Not able to understand the aliens immortality, telepathic aspects. • When we went to see the end of the world (1972) - Robert Silverberg - Highlights the conspicuous consumption nature of middle class and their constant race to go high up in the ladder of the society in comparison to others by getting a better vacation package to conduct a time travel vacation towards seeing the end of the world without actually worrying about the end of the world #PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 19 SAS 2020 The journey of Lucy in the Context : After this journey of mine – I needed a catharsis and hence Lucy happened
• Journey within a train (like a nemesis in compartments), and • In a ship (like a Sindbad)
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 20 SAS 2020 A moment that pushed you for the Science / Dystopian Fiction genre?
• I started following this genre from the age of 12 • I was travelling in a local train which was jampacked from Jadavpur to Ballygunge and it was so fully packed, I was constantly pulled apart from all sides in the two stop journey and I felt can there be a transportation medium in which everyday I can travel from home to school on air with airpumped shoes – I looked for options – I started reading Flash Gordon after being attracted through a visual • I saw something unfair around me and I felt if I can change the world for a betterment and then I started thinking how would that world will look like and hence I started reading about the world where I can see about these possibilities and hence I started to move towards the genre
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 21 SAS 2020 Feeling , Sustainability and Science Fiction?
• Practice feeling and responding to any unfair and injustice happening around you • Then practice how would you like to change it and what are the possibilities of changing it • Practice it and then in that possibility create a plot • To implement the plot create characters through whom you change it and then create the possibilities you want to see • The more dialectical the possibilities are, the better is the dystopian fiction
#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 22 SAS 2020 And hence LUCY (Love, Understanding, Creation and Youth) and her tryst with Sustainability was born
Sketch Potrait Created First in Sketch Potrait Created First in Diary and then projected Diary and then projected through coral draw through coral draw
Within a train (like a nemesis in compartments) In a ship (like a Sindbad) – moving through challenges towards future unknowns in order to be able to with an unknown vigilance sustain of Artificial Intelligence #PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 23 SAS 2020 THANK YOU
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#PlanetTalks IMPRI India Water Portal TERI 24 SAS 2020