Critical Worldbuilding: Toward a Geographical Engagement with Imagined Worlds

Authors

  • Jeff Vance Martin
  • Gretchen Sneegas Texas A&M University

Keywords:

fantasy, gaming, geek culture, political ecology, science fiction, speculative fiction, world-building, worlding

Abstract

-

Author Biography

Gretchen Sneegas, Texas A&M University

Postdoctoral Research AssociateDepartment of Geography

References

Ansfield, N. (1995) ‘Godzilla/Gojiro: Evolution of the nuclear metaphor.’ Journal of Popular Culture, 29(3), pp. 53-62.

Blaser, M. (2013) ‘Ontological Conflicts and the Stories of Peoples in Spite of Europe: Toward a Conversation on Political Ontology.’ Current Anthropology, 54(5), pp. 547-568.

Bradford, K. T. (2017) ‘Representation Matters: A Literary Call To Arms.’ Lit Reactor [Online] [Accessed 28 February 2020] https://litreactor.com/columns/ representation-matters.

Braun, B. (2015) ‘Futures: Imagining Socioecological Transformation–An Introduction.’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2), pp. 239-243.

Brugger, J., McClaran, M.P., and Sprinkle, J.E. (2019) ‘”Storytelling” Natural Resource Conflict on U.S. Public Lands.’ Ethnos, 85(1), pp. 54-78.

Cho, Y. (2019) ‘Remembering Lucky Dragon, re-membering Bikini: worlding the Anthropocene through transpacific nuclear modernity.’ Cultural Studies, 33(1), pp. 122-146.

Crocket, Z. and Zarracina, J. (2016) ‘How the zombie represents America’s deepest fears.’ Vox.com. [Online] [Accessed 15 November 2019] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/31/13440402/zombie-political-history.

D’Agostino, A. M. (2019) ‘“Who are you?”: representation, identification, and self-definition in Black Panther.’ Safundi, 20(1), pp. 1-4.

Dawdy, S. (2019) ‘Zombies and a Decaying American Ontology.’ Journal of Historical Sociology, 32(1), pp. 17-25.

Delany, S. R. (2000) [1998] ‘Racism and Science Fiction’ In Thomas, S. R. (ed) Darkmatter. New York: Warner Books. Available at https://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html

Drezner, D. (2014) ‘Metaphor of the Living Dead: Or, the Effect of the Zombie Apocalypse on Public Policy Discourse.’ Social Research, 81(4), pp. 825-849.

Ekman, S. and Taylor, A. I. (2016) ‘Notes Toward a Critical Approach to Worlds and World-Building,’ Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, 3(3), pp. 7-18.

Escobar, A. (2016) ‘Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South.’ AIBR: Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 11(1), pp. 11-32.

Essebo, M. (2019) ‘A mythical place: A conversation on the earthly aspects of myth.’ Progress in Human Geography, 43(3), pp. 515-530.

Goodman, N. (1978) Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

Gunderman, H. C. (2020) ‘Geographies of Science Fiction, Peace, and Cosmopolitanism: Conceptualizing Critical Worldbuilding through a Lens of Doctor Who.’ Literaary Geographies, 6(1), 39-58.

Harris, D. H. (2020) ‘Expanding Climate Science: Using Science Fiction’s Worldbuilding to Imagine a Climate Changed Southwestern U.S.’ Literary Geographies, 6(1), 59-76.

Heinen, S. and Sommer, R. (eds) (2009) Narratology in the Age of Cross-Disciplinary Narrative Research. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Herman, D. (2009) ‘Narrative Ways of Worldmaking.’ In Heinen, S. and Sommer, R. (eds) Narratology in the Age of Cross-Disciplinary Narrative Research. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 71-87.

Hickson, T. (2019) On Writing and Worldbuilding, Volume 1. Independently published.

LaPensée, E. (2017) ‘Video games encourage Indigenous cultural expression.’ The Conversation. [Online] [Accessed 28 February 2020] https://theconversation.com/ video-games-encourage-indigenous-cultural-expression-74138.

Law, J. (2015) ‘What's wrong with a one-world world?’ Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 16(1), pp. 126-139.

Lewis-Jones, H. (2018) The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Leyda, J. (2018) ‘Petropolitics, clif-fi and Occupied.’ Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 8(2), pp. 83-101.

Merriam-Webster. n.d. ‘‘Words We're Watching: What is 'World-Building’? And how do you spell it?’ [Online] [Accessed 26 February 2020] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-is-world-building.

Mortensen, T. E. (2016) ‘Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate.’ Games and Cultures, 13(8), pp. 787-806.

Nishime, L. (2017) ‘Whitewashing Yellow Futures in Ex Machina, Cloud Atlas and Advantageous: Gender, Labor and Technology in Sci-fi Film.’ Journal of Asian American Studies, 20(1), pp. 29-49.

Peterson, D. J. (2015) The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building. London: Penguin Books.

Rafferty, T. (2004) ‘The Monster That Morphed Into a Metaphor.’ The New York Times. [Online] [Accessed 15 November 2019] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/ popcult/handouts/metaphor/godzilla/godzilla.html.

Robbins, P. (2012) Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. 2nd Edition. Hoboken: Wiley.

Roin, H. (2016) Imaginative, Immersive and Interactive Engagements: The rhetoric of worldbuilding in contemporary speculative fiction. Academic Dissertation, University of Tampere, Finland, School of Languages, Translation Studies and Literary Studies. Tampere: Tampere University Press.

Silverstein, J. (ed) (2012) The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding. Kirkland: Kobold Press.

Svoboda, M. (2016) ‘Cli-fi on the screen(s): patterns in the representations of climate change in fictional films.’ WIREs Climate Change, 7(1), pp. 43-64.

Tarr, A. R. (2020) ‘Does Wall•E Dream of Electric Kale? The California Dream as Post-Scarcity Nightmare.’ Literary Geographsies, 6(1), 24-38.

Tolkien, J. R. R. (2013) [1983] ‘On Fairy-Stories.’ In The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. HarperCollins Publishers.

Tuhus-Dubrow, R. (2013) ‘Cli-Fi: Birth of a Genre.’ Dissent, 60(3), pp. 58-61.

von Stackelberg, P. and McDowell, A. (2015) ‘What in the World? Storyworlds, Science Fiction, and Futures Studies.’ Journal of Futures Studies, 20(2), pp. 25-46.

Wonser, R. and Boyns, D. (2016) ‘Between the Living and Undead: How Zombie Cinema Reflects the Social Construction of Risk, the Anxious Self, and Disease Pandemic.’ The Sociological Quarterly, 57(4), pp. 628-653.

Wolf, M. J. P. (2012) Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. London: Routledge.

Zaidi, L. (2019) ‘Worldbuilding in Science Fiction, Foresight and Design.’ Journal of Futures Studies, 23(4), pp. 15-26.

Zigon, J. (2017) ‘A Politics of Worldbuilding.’ Member Voices, Fieldsights. 5 December 2017. [Online] [Accessed 1 December 2019] https://culanth.org/fieldsights/a-politics-of-worldbuilding.

Downloads

Published

2020-06-15

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2020)

Section

Theme Editorial

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).