"Goldsmiths Press PERC series". Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Economics, science fiction, history, and comparative studies / Ha-Joon Chang -- Future incorporated? / Laura Horn -- Currencies of social organization: the future of money / Sherryl Vint -- Automating economic revolution: Robert Heinlein's The moon is a harsh mistress / Brian Willems -- Feeding like a parasite anime: extraction and science fiction in capitalist dystopia / Carina Brand -- Pain camp economics / AUDINT -- AT392-red / Khairani Barokka -- The new Black / Nora O Murchú -- Fatbergs and sinkholes / Dan Gavshon Brady and James Pockson -- Prefabricating communism: mass production and the Soviet city / Owen Hatherley -- Megastructures, superweapons and global architectures in science fiction computer games / Mark R Johnson -- Economic design fictions: finding the human scale / Bastien Kerspern -- Valuing utopia in speculative and critical design / Tobias Revell et al. -- Shooting the bridge: liminality and the end of capitalism / Tim Jackson -- Speculative hyperstition at a northern further education college / Judy Thorne -- The future encylopedia of luddism / Miriam Cherry -- Public money and democracy / Joseph Walton.
Summary:
"Economics and science fiction rarely have much to do with each other. As a discipline, economics is far removed from creative writing. Science fiction arguably tells us little about the reality of day-to-day capitalism. Economic Science Fictions challenges and changes that. By treating our economy as a series of 'fictions' - stories and expectations regarding the future - and treating science fiction-writing as a means of anticipating different economic futures, this book offers various imaginative and surprising new syntheses. It brings together social science with fiction-writing; critique of everyday economic life with visions of alternatives; design with politics; utopias with dystopias; and academic scholarship with new styles of writing. Rooted in a sense that contemporary 'economic reality' is no longer working and no longer credible, it explores how we might draw on imagination and the inherent uncertainty of the future, both to revitalise economic thinking, and to re-imagine the present. This book will appeal to those working in cultural studies, creative writing, sociology, political economy and history of economic thought. Above all, it provides fresh and unusual perspectives for anyone who believes that the economy is too important to be left to the dry technicalities of economics"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.