Imaginaries of the Future City: Envisioning Climate Change and Technological Cityscapes Through Contemporary Speculative Fiction

How does narrative fiction function as an integrating discourse in constructing and shaping (collective) imaginations of a safe future city? This is the departing question for the proposed project that aims at setting up an interdisciplinary international network within the lines of the OU research focus ‘De Veilige Stad / Safety in Urban Environments’.
The project includes the organization of an international, two-day workshop (Spring 2020) and a preparatory internal work meeting (Fall 2019) that bring together scholars from literary studies, environmental studies and psychology. Goal of the workshop is to further constitute a unique collaboration between these three research fields in which the representation of the future city is studied in diverse ways, yet all with a specific focus on the role of narratives in constructing (collective) imaginations of a safe future city.
In the first place the workshop contributes to raising the OU profile in (inter)national settings. Secondly it is directed towards writing a joint proposal for acquiring external funding (e.g. for the 2020 NWA rounds, route ‘Smart, Liveable Cities’ and/or the NWO ‘Smart Culture’ program). In addition, the outcomes of the workshop are presented in a position paper and/or in a concrete planning of a special (monographic) issue on ‘Imaginaries of the Future City’.