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Power Dynamics in Speculative Forms

Power dynamics in speculative forms

Introduction
Mélanie JOSEPH-VILAIN, Indiana LODS et Marine PAQUEREAU

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1Speculative literature tends to be defined in opposition to realism, which is often considered to be a particularly relevant mode for the study of reality and the power relations underlying it. In the United States, for instance, realism has stemmed from a desire to propose a social art form, as Ruland and Bradbury explain, quoting realist writer and critic William Dean Howells:

The art of fiction has in fact become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens or Thackeray,’ Howells claimed, writing now of his other eminent friend, Henry James. By ‘finer art’ Howells meant a more precise and detailed art, an art responsive to social necessity. For Howells insisted that America was no longer to be written as timeless myth, a state of nature, a Hawthornean ‘romance,’ but as a changing social mechanism very much in process that required the detailed understanding of the new novel. (204)

  • 1 See the debate between Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin about the notions of “science fiction”, s (...)

2Hence an apparent difference from science fiction, famously defined by Darko Suvin as “a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition" (7-8; emphasis in original). While realism responds to the author’s social environment, science fiction is, he argues, “a literary form that functioned to defamiliarize, critique, and/or satirize present-day reality through the projection of alternative worlds, an effect accomplished through the mobilization of both technoscientific methods (‘cognitive logic’) and objects (‘fictional novum[s].’)” (Latham 2) Even if Suvin’s prescriptive conception of science fiction has been challenged, notably under the influence of cultural studies (Latham 3), its emphasis on defamiliarization and “estrangement” explains its long-lasting influence. The term “science fiction” usually refers to artistic works which imagine alternative worlds, not necessarily, or not only, based on scientific inventions. This broad acceptation of the label “science fiction”, which has come to include utopia and dystopia, as well as apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction, seems to be based on the speculative dimension of these forms, on their capacity to imagine worlds which do not exist (yet1). It is probably for this reason that speculative fiction and its sub-genres, or categories, have been opposed to “serious” literature, perceived as more legitimate in the publishing and academic worlds, and accused of being escapist, supposedly shunning social issues). “Science fiction” and “speculative fiction” have often come to be synonymous, and the boundaries between them have been blurred. For instance, Margaret Atwood observes in “Scientific Romancing” that “[s]ome use speculative fiction as an umbrella covering science fiction and all its hybrid forms—science fiction fantasy, and so forth—and others choose the reverse” (Burning Questions 8). Our approach will be based on this inclusive conception of “speculative fiction” as a mode of writing used to speculate about possible or alternative worlds.

3Anne Besson, however, underlines the reflexive and political potential of literatures of the imagination, which she sees as imbued with “powers of enchantment”:

  • 2 All quotations from sources originally published in French have been translated by us.

In opposition to a common misconception still linking literatures of the imagination and the cultural practices associated with them […] to an “escape” from the harsh realities of life […], many longstanding examples show, on the contrary, a strong association between that cultural field and ethical and political uses: as vectors of values and ideology, like “popular” or “mass” cultural products more generally, their specific features—the projection of other possible worlds—also associate them with creative forces capable of circumventing or subverting the norms in place2. (9)

4For instance, in dystopian and utopian fiction, “the most persistent motif is undoubtedly the political question, in the etymological sense (polis, the city): what organization should we adopt to live together? What common arrangements and what systems should be favored?” (Bazin 47) Dystopia and utopia, however, are not the only literary genres tackling political issues in the broadest sense. Apocalyptic fiction, too, “invents a contemporary form of tragedy that places humanity under its own critical gaze.” (Engélibert 11) Dystopias, utopias, apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction all generate models to be followed or avoided, as they aim to warn against the excesses of power in the extradiegetic world. Such speculative genres have become privileged, global and popular forms of counter-narratives in the twenty-first century, challenging the hegemony of realism as a means of representing present-day society. Science fiction, far from being limited to the “space opera” stereotype, enables writers and artists to question the power in place by distorting its features (Suvin), thus sharpening the readers’ gaze and encouraging them to operate a (historical, identity-related, artistic) revision of the narrative, and by extension of reality (Delany 5). These are some of the tensions that these articles seek to explore. The project originated at the 2024 AFEA conference, where we organized a workshop on the relationship between power and speculative fiction. After the conference, we felt that the reflection needed to be extended beyond the scope of the workshop, since the complex link between speculative forms and power dynamics is at the core of recent artistic productions, such as the film Neptune Frost (2021) by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, the series Black Mirror (2009-present), or the novels Prophet Song (2023) by Paul Lynch, ChainGang All­Stars (2023) by Nana Kwame AdjeiBrenyah, The Deluge (2023) by Stephen Markley or Death of the Author (2025) by Nnedi Okorafor. Considering the impressive output in the field of speculative forms, this collection of articles does not aim to exhaustively cover the issues raised by power dynamics in the field. Rather, it seeks to identify some of the major concerns raised by and in recent speculative works in the English-speaking world. Similarly, the debates around the term “speculative” itself are addressed only in relation to specific works, although we are aware of the varied definitions given by artists and thinkers.

  • 3 Only Mark Dery and Kodwo Eshun are mentioned in our introduction for the sake of brevity, yet other (...)

5While the first science fiction novels, partly inspired by travel narratives, conveyed colonialist and imperialist representations and concerns (Langer; Rieder), minorities belonging to the Afrofuturist movement, coined by Mark Dery and theorized by Kodwo Eshun in the 1990s, have reappropriated the speculative mode to imagine futures for people of African descent, in and outside of Africa, thus redefining black identities and challenging forms of political and discursive domination3. The conventions of Afrofuturism and those of other speculative genres such as dystopia, which also question the past or the present for social and political purposes, are used to thwart the racial representations produced and conveyed by Western sciences, as well as to explore the points of convergence between the history of Afro-descendants and the tropes of science fiction: the abduction of African populations by men from elsewhere, the crossing of the Atlantic to foreign lands to be enslaved, or the attempts to erase African memories and cultures. Such reappropriation and transformation of Afro-descendant traditions and cultural heritage is at the core of Guillaume Dupetit’s study of musical signifyin(g) as a form of speculation. His article shows how artists situated in different times, spaces and therefore perspectives, Quasimoto and A Tribe Called Quest, revisit techniques of encoding and decoding associated with Afrofuturism to create forms of empowerment.

6Many artists, Afrofuturist or not, use the codes of science fiction critically to question historiography and oppressive norms, including those of literary genres or artistic forms whose boundaries are blurred in the name of creative freedom. Gender, sexuality, race, class, and the relationship between the human and the non-human are all themes which speculative literature addresses from an innovative perspective. Counter-narratives and representations can challenge established norms in the fields of gender, sexuality, race, class, or hierarchies between the human and the non-human, and can explore, challenge, denounce, and imagine other ways of being in the world. Thus, in Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, the codes of science fiction, in particular the coexistence of various species on board the Wayfarer spaceship, provide a fruitful means to explore and destabilize hierarchies between the human and the non-human. Focusing on the specificity of insects, Phoebe Chetwynd analyses their fictional representations to understand the complexity of human-nonhuman power dynamics and to show how science fiction can both challenge and reproduce forms of exclusion.

7Several of the articles explore the way in which minorities have adapted speculative forms to a political agenda (in the broad sense of the term), either individual or collective. For instance, both Yves Gardes and Marine Galiné examine recent speculative works by women writers in which power dynamics are explored, and identities are redefined. Galiné’s reading of Sue Rainsford’s Follow Me to Ground (2019) shows how this Irish novel’s generic instability, tapping into the tradition of “Bog Gothic,” also unsettles or even erases a number of boundaries between the human and the non-human, testifying to the capacity of literatures of the imagination to challenge various types of oppression or categorization. In his analysis of Ojibwe writer Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017), Gardes similarly examines the destabilization of categories: dystopia, he explains, becomes a tool to critique colonial epistemologies and create forms of resistance—epistemological, spiritual, and corporeal The capacity of speculative forms to decolonize perspectives also emerges from Cédric Courtois’s contribution, in which he explores the articulation between power dynamics and in/visibility in Nigerian writer Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s post-apocalyptic novella Lost Ark Dreaming (2024). In all three cases, the writers offer counter-narratives which disrupt, unsettle and redefine power relations and gendered categories in postcolonial societies, suggesting that, as stated in Okungbwa’s text, “[t]he stories we carry change the world” (161, original emphasis).

8Literature and art can therefore become effective counter-powers, and influence reality:

Political statements and literary locutions produce effects in reality. They define models of speech or action but also regimes of sensible intensity. They draft maps of the visible, trajectories between the visible and the sayable, relationships between modes of being, modes of saying, modes of doing and making. They define variations of sensible intensities, perceptions, and the abilities of bodies. (Rancière 39)

9While they help to produce less stereotyped, more inclusive and empowering representations testifying to literature’s “high functionalism” in its “cognitive, anthropological and political” (Gefen 200) dimensions, speculative forms are committed in more ways than one, notably because they can have a direct and tangible impact on reality. For instance, Octavia Butler’s Parables series is often mentioned as an inspiration, for instance in When They Call you a Terrorist: a Black Lives Matter Memoir (2018) by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele, co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. Butler’s name is also referenced in the title of a collection of speculative narratives written by activists and edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha, Octavia’s Brood (2015). These stories, collected under the label “visionary fiction,” aim at decolonizing imagination and promoting social justice.

10The inscription of literatures of the imagination within the seemingly contradictory frameworks of reality and fantasy is explored by Amélie Moisy in her reading of Adam Johnson’s novella “Interesting Facts” (2015) which, she argues, “may lead us beyond our ordinary limitations and towards a greater world”, illustrating Hassler and Wilcox’s suggestion that “in the blending of reality and fantasy a true questioning of power is made possible”.

11Like Johnson’s novella, several of the works studied in the present volume integrate codes from various genres, or even from other artistic forms, testifying to the frequent disintegration of generic boundaries in speculative fiction (Wolfe). Most of them are also extremely recent, reflecting the dynamism of speculative forms all over the English-speaking world and beyond, evidence perhaps of these forms’ capacity to engage with reality in troubled times.

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Bibliographie

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Notes

1 See the debate between Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin about the notions of “science fiction”, speculative fiction” and “fantasy”, as reported for instance in Atwood’s introduction to In Other Worlds (5-7).

2 All quotations from sources originally published in French have been translated by us.

3 Only Mark Dery and Kodwo Eshun are mentioned in our introduction for the sake of brevity, yet other critics, artists, and scholars have developed their own definitions of the movement since the 1990s, notably, in chronological order, Mark Sinker; Alondra Nelson; Ytasha Womack; Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones; Isiah Lavender and Lisa Yaszek.

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Mélanie JOSEPH-VILAIN, Indiana LODS et Marine PAQUEREAU, « Power dynamics in speculative forms »e-Rea [En ligne], 23.1 | 2025, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2025, consulté le 18 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/erea/20371 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15cix

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Auteurs

Mélanie JOSEPH-VILAIN

Mélanie Joseph-Vilain is Professor at the Université Bourgogne Europe (Dijon, France) where she teaches contemporary anglophone literature. She has published articles and book chapters on South African, Nigerian, Guyanese and Zimbabwean literatures, as well as on cross-Atlantic literary works, and she has co-edited several collections. Her research focuses on literary affiliations and literary genres (crime fiction, dystopia, speculative fiction) in South African literature. Her book Post-Apartheid Gothic: White South African Writers and Space (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2021) examines the interactions between these issues.

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Indiana LODS

Indiana Lods is a Teaching Fellow in the English Studies Department at the Université Bourgogne Europe, and a fifth-year PhD student working on monstrosity in Afrofuturist and speculative American and South African literatures, under the supervision of Mélanie Joseph-Vilain. Her research focuses on literary genres and contemporary literatures, and her work has been published in Otrante, Postcolonial Literature and Arts, Bifrost, and Lesedi.

Marine PAQUEREAU

Marine Paquereau is an Associate Professor in the English Studies Department at the University of Burgundy Europe and a member of the Centre Interlangues: TIL UR 4182. She obtained her PhD in 2015 with a dissertation on American social realism in the postmodern era. Her research focuses on the representation of social issues and historical events in contemporary American literature, with a special interest in the concepts of margins and (spatial, social, literary) borders.

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