marieke winkler – letterkundige, criticus en onderzoeker

Categorie: speculative fiction

  • De stad als palimpsest

    Wat is een stad? Deze vraag staat centraal in het nieuwste themanummer van het literatuurwetenschappelijke tijdschrift Vooys. Met bijdragen van o.a. Daan Wesselman, Bram Caers en Rona Loeffen. In onze bijdrage aan dit themanummer belichten Marjolein van Herten en ik het bloeiende onderzoeksveld van de literary urban studies en analyseren we vanuit die hoek twee toekomstromans die reflecteren over het einde van de stad: De eerste hond in de ruimte (2010), de debuutroman van Jeroen van Rooij over een grote Europese stad waarvan de laatste dagen zijn geteld en het met de Boekenbon literatuurprijs bekroonde Gebied 19 (2023) van Esther Gerritsen waarin het grootste (én vitaalste) deel van de bevolking is getransporteerd naar planeet T01-700 D, een ruimere en schonere versie van de oorspronkelijke aarde die zo goed als opgebruikt is.

    In onze analyse hanteren we het metaforische begrip palimpsest als leidraad om na te gaan hoe de stedelijke ruimte van de toekomst in beide romans wordt verbeeld, zowel op inhoudelijk niveau (the material city as palimpsest) als op het niveau van de representatie (the represented city as palimpsest) en het niveau van de geschiedenis (urban literary history as palimpsest): hoe verhoudt de verbeelding van de toekomstige stad zich tot de stadsbeelden die in het verhaalheden tot het verleden behoren? En wat staat er met het verbeelde naderende einde van de stad op het spel: het einde van de wereld – zoals een bekend cli-fi motief wil – of het einde van ‘een’ wereld, en welke wereld dan?

    Lees het in de nieuwste Vooys!

    Marieke Winkler & Marjolein van Herten, ‘Gelaagde toekomst. De stad als palimpsest in De eerste hond in de ruimte (2010) en Gebied 19 (2023)’, in: Vooys 43.1, 2025.

  • Verschenen: Utopia, Equity and Ideology in Urban Texts – Fair and Unfair Cities

    Deze zomer verscheen Utopia, Equity and Ideology in Urban Texts. Fair and Unfair Cities, het nieuwste deel in de Literary Urban Studies (LIURS)-serie van Palgrave MacMillan. Het boek volgt op het congres (Un)Fair Cities. Equity, Ideology and Utopia in Urban Texts dat in december 2019 in Limerick georganiseerd werd door de Association for Literary Urban Studies en het Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies.

    In ‘Imaginaries of the Future City: Envisioning Climate Change and Technological Cityscapes through Dutch Contemporary Speculative Fiction’ dat als hoofdstuk is opgenomen in dit boek, beschrijven Marjolein van Herten en ik de opkomst en ontwikkeling van de toekomstliteratuur (future novel) en speculatieve fictie in Nederland, en de recente opleving daarvan in boekhandel én academische literatuurstudie.

    In het hoofdstuk bespreken we acht Nederlandse teksten die verschenen tussen 2014 en 2021: Weerwater (2015) van Renate Dorrestein; Kop uit het zand (2016) van Jan Terlouw; In alle steden (2017) van Aukelien Weverling; Klont (2017) van Maxim Februari; De goede zoon (2018) van Rob van Essen; Concept M. (2018) van Aafke Romeijn; Het boek van alle angsten (2020) van Emy Koopman; en KliFi. Woede in de Republiek Nederland (2021) van Adriaan van Dis.

    De focus ligt daarbij enerzijds op de manier waarop de stedelijke en natuurlijke leefomgeving wordt verbeeld. In hoeverre wagen Nederlandse auteurs zich aan de verbeelding van fantastische nieuwe werelden of blijven zij toch liever ‘dicht bij huis’ (en waarom dan)?

    Anderzijds zijn we benieuwd hoe de nieuwe interesse in extrapolatie (het verlengen, intensiveren of uitbreiden van elementen uit het heden naar een toekomst of alternatief heden) wordt verbonden aan het recente debat over Nederlandse klimaatfictie. Daarin gaan we, thematisch en formeel, op zoek naar elementen van ‘utopian hope’. Welke elementen van ‘utopian hope’ vallen te herkennen naast de duidelijke dystopische impuls in Nederlandse speculatieve (kilmaat)fictie?

    Benieuwd naar onze bevindingen? Lees dan het hoofdstuk:

    Marieke Winkler and Marjolein van Herten (2023). ‘Imaginaries of the Future City: Envisioning Climate Change and Technological Cityscapes through Dutch Contemporary Speculative Fiction’, in: Michael G. Kelly and Mariano Paz (eds.) Utopia, Equity and Ideology in Urban Texts. Fair and Unfair Cities. Palgrave Macmillan Cham. ISBN 978-3-031-25854-1. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25855-8

    In this chapter, we address the flourishing and fast-growing production of future novels within contemporary Dutch literature since 2014. We analyse the ways in which Dutch authors use the technique of extrapolation to envision the urban/natural environment of the future, focused on a corpus of eight future novels from the period 2015–2021. First, we argue that, by indicating and comparing both spatial and temporal ‘reality markers’, speculation in contemporary Dutch literature tends to stay ‘close to home’. Second, we demonstrate that, overall, the themes of climate change and technologization are represented as highly intertwined in diverse constellations. In addition, we try to determine in what way the stories under investigation give both formally and thematically expression to a utopian impulse: Overall, do they show utopian elements or is the urban experience predominantly dystopian?

  • CfP special issue ‘Narratives & Climate Change’

    Following up on our workshop ‘Narratives & Climate Change’ of June 2020 we are composing a special issue together with the peer-reviewed, international and multilingual online journal Interférences litteraires/literaire interferenties.

    Thematic focus and key questions:

    Within the current debate on the societal and environmental impact of climate change scientists and policymakers as well as artists stress the importance of producing compelling narratives to envision a safe future society. Especially speculative fiction – the genre that explores possible futures – plays an important, integrating role in imagining and engaging with the implications of climate change: not only do fictional narratives offer a great opportunity to engage readers on a personal level with the complexities and scale of climate change, they also prove to be productive in policy making practices and in mediating calculated, data-driven climate scenarios (Hajer 2005; Hulme 2009; Thomas 2013; Moezzi a.o. 2017; Johns-Putra 2016 and 2019).

    This special issue sets out to investigate the integrative power of speculative fiction, focusing in particular on the intersection between literature and environmental sciences by focusing on the following key questions:

    1. How to conceptualize the role that narratives play in bringing the global scale of climate change into the realm of the personal?
    2. How do fictional narratives co-produce reality and contribute to the public debate, to governance or vice versa to (environmental) science? Are narratives indeed to be understood as means (‘productive fictions’) to encourage awareness and even foster behavioral change (‘risk related affect’, learning)?
    3. What narrative techniques (e.g., the use of metaphors, allusion or extrapolation) are used in both scientific and artistic discourse to envision the consequences of climate change? How do they differ in use, where do they overlap? How do both utopian and dystopian storylines relate to ‘eco-anxiety’ and the wish to go beyond eco-paralysis? How and why do utopian or dystopian future scenario’s manifest themselves within approaches from the different fields of study?

    Practicalities:

    Interférences litteraires/literaire interferenties (ISSN 2031-2970) is a peer-reviewed, international and multilingual online journal (DOAJ) devoted to the interaction between literature and cultural and societal practices. For more information see: http://www.interferenceslitteraires.be/index.php/illi/index.

    Researchers from literary and cultural studies with a focus on environmental humanities and sciences are invited to contribute full-length articles of approximately 8-10.000 words incl. footnotes and references. We particularly promote diversity in terms of theoretical frameworks and geographical contexts. We especially encourage non-English contributions (e.g. French, German, Spanish).  

    If you are interested in contributing, please send an email to ClimateNarratives@ou.nl by April 16th, 2021 including an abstract (ca. 250-500 words) and a short bio (max. 200 words). The outcome of the selection process will be communicated before May 9th, 2021. We are expecting completed contributions by December 1st, 2021 after which the journal’s peer review procedure will start. The issue is planned for Spring 2022.

    Editorial note:

    The proposal for this issue follows up on the international workshop ‘Narratives & Climate Change’ held online on June 25th-26th, 2020 (Open University). The workshop is part of the research network project ‘Imaginaries of the Future City: Envisioning Climate Change and Technological Cityscapes through Contemporary Speculative Fiction’. More information on the network project is to be found on our webpage: https://www.ou.nl/en/the-safe-city-imaginaries-of-the-future-city

    References:

    Hajer, M.A. (2005). ‘Rebuilding ground zero. The politics of performance’. Planning theory & practice, 6(4), 445-464.

    Hulme, Mike. (2009). Why we disagree about climate change. Cambridge University Press. 

    Johns-Putra, A. (ed.) (2016). Climate and Literature. Cambridge Critical Concepts Series. Cambridge University Press.

    Johns-Putra, A. (2019). Climate Change and the Contemporary Novel. Cambridge University Press.

    Moezzi, Mithra, Kathryn B. Janda, Sea Rotmann. (2017). ‘Using stories, narratives, and storytelling in energy and climate change research’. Energy Research & Social Sciences, Vol.31, 1-10.

    Thomas, P.L. (ed.) (2013) Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction. Challenging genres. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam/Boston. 

  • CfP Narratives & Climate Change

    future city

    Imaginaries of the Future City: Envisioning Climate Change through Contemporary Speculative Fiction Call for Proposals – International workshop 25-26 June 2020 in Utrecht, The Netherlands and a subsequent special issue on Narratives & Climate Change

     

    Narratives & Climate Change

    Within the current debate on the societal consequences of climate change, environmental scientists, cultural scholars and artists from different scientific disciplines stress the importance of producing compelling narratives and scenario’s to envision the safe city of the future. Especially speculative fiction – the genre that explores possible futures – is considered a powerful tool that plays an important, integrating role in imagining and engaging with the implications of climate change.

    Not only do narratives offer a great opportunity to engage readers on a personal level with the complexities of climate change, they also play a productive role in policy making practices as well as in mediating calculated, data-driven climate scenarios.

    Connected by the productive power of speculative fiction and narratives, this workshop brings together some 20-25 scholars from different fields of study, such as environmental sciences, psychology and literary studies in order to foster a better and more integrated analytical discussion on the role of narratives in envisioning the societal, psychological and cultural consequences of climate change.

    We invite researchers from environmental sciences, psychology and literary studies working in multidisciplinary teams to present a draft paper in June and discuss theoretical, methodological or empirical standpoints on the specific nature, functioning or effect of climate change narratives. Both existing multi-disciplinary teams are invited to participate, as well as individual scientists who are open to work in such a team. Based on research field and expertise, and research ideas, the aim of the organizing committee is to bring together individual participants in order to enhance multi-disciplinary research teams. The aim of the workshop in June is to publish the draft papers, subject to normal review procedure, as a special issue in a highly ranked scientific journal or edited book on ‘Narratives & Climate Change’.

     

    Topical Themes 

    The workshop is open to a broad variety of interpretations of the relationship between narratives and climate change, but we strongly encourage submissions on the following themes:

    • How to conceptualize of and empirically understand the role that narratives play in bringing the global scale of the climate crisis into the realm of the personal, and what narrative techniques (e.g., the use of metaphors, allusion or extrapolation) are used to grasp the complexity of the climate debate? How do these narrative techniques function within lived experiences of climate change? How do they influence daily routines and practices (for instance individual, household, company, community but also government decision making)? How do narratives co-produce reality and contribute to the public debate, to governance or vice versa to (environmental) science?
    • Which narrative techniques can be discerned and which ones are used to grasp the complexity of the climate debate? How and why do either utopian or dystopian future scenario’s manifest themselves within approaches from the different fields of study? How do both utopian and dystopian schemes relate to ‘eco-anxiety’ and the wish to go beyond eco-paralysis?
    • Are narratives to be understood as means (‘productive fictions’) to encourage awareness and even foster behavioral change (‘risk related affect’, learning), and if so how can this be understood and what is empirically known about the way this affect is accomplished? Concomitantly, how do narratives co-produce reality and contribute to the public debate? What is the relation between fictional elements and non-fictional or realistic data in future scenario’s?

     

    Practicalities and submission deadlines

    Interested participants (individually or already teamed up) are encouraged to submit 500 word proposals plus bibliography, accompanied by a short biography (max. 200 words) by January 31, 2020. Please send your proposal to FutureCities[a]ou.nl.

    Participants will be notified of acceptance/rejection by February 28, 2020.

    Those selected to contribute are expected to submit a draft paper by June 1, 2020 as these will be distributed to all workshop participants beforehand.

    The draft papers will be intensively debated at the workshop and full papers should tentatively be submitted by November 2020.

    Authors with questions are encouraged to contact FutureCities[a]ou.nl.

     

    Organisation

    Prof. Dr. Brigitte Adriaensen, Dr. ir. Raoul Beunen, Prof. Dr. Stefan Dekker, Dr. Marjolein van Herten (coordination), Dr. Andries Hof, Prof. Dr. Dave Huitema, Jilt Jorritsma MA, Prof. Dr. Lilian Lechner, Evelien van Nieuwenhoven MA (coordination), Prof. Dr. Paquita Perez Salgado, Dr. Marieke Winkler (coordination).

     

    Website

    https://www.ou.nl/the-safe-city-imaginaries-of-the-future-city

     

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    Afbeelding: Alexis Rockman, Manifest Destiny (2004)