Speculative fiction, while set in the future, is concerned with dominant social issues and debates at the time of writing. They are often read as warnings about future directions of society.
You have been invited to present at an online conference by the organisation Australian Youth Literary Alliance: Future Directions: Where Are We Going?
You are to select an approved substantive text, written or non-written in the speculative fiction genre, for example a novel, a minimum of three short stories, or an approved film. (See attached suggested texts list for inspiration).
You are to prepare an 8-10 minute presentation focusing on how speculative fiction is a warning of present social trends.
You need to investigate the main issues raised in text you have selected and the relevance of these issues to current and future society. You are to complete additional research that informs your interpretation of the substantive text.
Your presentation should focus on posing and answering questions raised by your research for a contemporary audience.
ResearchGate is the professional network for scientists and researchers. Over 20 million members from all over the world use it to share, discover, and discuss research. Many research papers on ResearchGate have PDFs freely available. Use the search bar to search a topic, or use the link provided below as a starting point.
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The Natural Way of Things by
In the third year of the First World War, The Russian Empire experienced a year of revolutionary turmoil that saw the fall of the emperor, Tsar Nicholas II. This was followed by the creation of an interim government which in turn was overthrown by an extreme revolutionary socialist regime in October that year. By the end of 1917 a government that would rule Russia as a dictatorship for most of the rest of the 20th Century was firmly in power and its establishment would have profound implications.
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1984 by
Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.
Fahrenheit 451 by
Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel "Fahrenheit 451"is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
The Year of the Flood by
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life.
By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, "The Year of the Flood" is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.
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