This will be a course about the future and how it is made. We will look at multiple modes of speculation, including financial speculation, speculative storytelling through fiction and cinema, and speculative political claims on new futures. Each of these modes of speculation will imagine and predict radically different futures, and each mode will tell us something crucial about economic, cultural, and political life in the US. We will study the rise of futures trading and money as a speculative media technology; read some of Octavia Butler’s fiction and watch sci-fi movies; and look at contemporary movements for debt cancellation, prison abolition, and climate justice. Readings will draw from film and media studies, Black feminism, queer theory, anti-colonialist thought, and Marxism.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 25

Crosslisted Courses:

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Alexander

Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis

Typical Periods Offered: Fall

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered

Notes: