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This paper explores a possible future of postdigital education in 2050 using the means of social science fiction. The first part of the paper introduces the shift from 20th century primacy of physics to 21st century primacy of biology with an accent to new postdigital--biodigital reconfigurations and challenges in and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The second part of the paper presents a fictional speech at the graduation ceremony of a fictional military academy in a fictional East Asian country in 2050. This fictional world is marked by global warfare and militarization, and addressed graduates are the first generation of artificially evolved graduates in human history. The third part of the paper interprets the fictional narrative, contextualizes it into educational challenges of today, and argues for a dialogical, humanistic conception of new postdigital education in a biotech future.

As a unique literary genre, science fiction can serve as a motivating text to develop students' critical analytical skills and to promote critical thinking about new technology and its societal controversies under proper guidance. In the field of English as Foreign Language (EFL) learning, using science fiction films in the classroom affords EFL learners new language-learning experiences. This paper explains how films, as a multimodal resource in EFL classes, can enrich students' multiliteracies--specifically how the science fiction genre can develop students' critical literacies under careful meaning-making curriculum design. A preliminary study, taking 30 students in a foreign language high school in China, is reported in this paper. Findings reveal that carefully selected science fiction films such as "I am Legend" and "Blade Runner" can serve as pivotal sources for developing EFL learners' literacy under the multiliteracies pedagogy. Such films can also connect students with Western ideology to reinforce their identity as participants in globalization. This study further suggests that key points in successful design of the course in an EFL classroom include posing critical questions to promote critical thinking and actively analyzing multimodal texts to uncover underlying meanings in source material.

This article presents an interview with Paolo Bacigalupi, a rising sci-fi star who has walked away with the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and, most recently, the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature--the Young Adult Library Services Association's top prize for prose. That's pretty impressive for a guy who's published only two novels--"The Windup Girl," a gritty futuristic thriller about the dire consequences of genetic engineering, and his first young adult novel, the Printz-winning "Ship Breaker," a postapocalyptic page-turner that was also short-listed for the National Book Award. Although the talented Mr. B. may sound like an overnight sensation, his first short story was published more than a decade ago, in 1999. Before that, in the early '90s, he attended Ohio's Oberlin College, where he majored in Chinese, and then spent a few years working as a web consultant and traveling in China. Since then, he's had his share of average-Joe jobs, including a four-year stint as an online editor and webmaster for "High County News," an environmentally conscious magazine. In this interview, Bacigalupi talks about his Printz-winning novel, his no-nonsense take on wealth and success, and why he's hooked on sci-fi.

The term 'science fiction (sci-fi) industry' has developed only in the past two decades in China. It has gone through special cultural, economic and political backgrounds in its conceptual development. After years of evolution and under the influence of some influential sci-fi intellectual properties, the sci-fi industry has developed typical forms such as reading material, film and television programs, games, derivative products and cultural tourism. These forms are also the major means for the generation of sci-fi content and the dissemination of sci-fi culture. The sci-fi industry has three key features: it integrates culture with science and technology as production factors; it has both production capacity and consumer appeal; and it is made up of interconnected vertical and horizontal production chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on women's science fiction in China. A prevailing perception among readers and critics suggests that women's sensibilities enable them to convey more nuanced emotions in their works. To examine this viewpoint within the realm of contemporary Chinese science fiction, a quantitative approach based on affective computing was employed. This approach allowed for a systematic evaluation of indicators such as emotional arc, emotional richness, and twistiness. The findings reveal that while individual writers may exhibit distinct emotional writing styles, overall, there is no significant disparity in emotional narratives between male and female science fiction writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines two interconnected human-made nonhuman entities stemming from Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone, that have become dominant figures in mapping the city's - and by extension, China's - future: the robot and the drone. I bring an interdisciplinary, cultural studies approach to the multiple meaning-making practices that engage with these two objects; both participate in enacting the vision for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an extension of the success of Shenzhen. These practices simultaneously normalise aspirations for a future fuelled by the power of nonhuman technological agents while offering glimpses into the uneven power relations between different humans that underpin such future making. At the same time, they also point to the emergent possibilities of meaningmaking that conjoin the human and the nonhuman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an interview with Jinkang Wang, a science fiction writer. Wang discusses his experience as a science fiction writer and the qualities necessary for success in the genre. He also talks about the themes in his works, including life science and ethics, and cosmic issues. Wang shares his views on the definition of science fiction and the concept of "core science fiction." He also addresses the contradiction between his reflection on the consequences of scientific progress and his firm belief in science. Wang discusses the presence of the concept of "God" in his works and his understanding of it. He concludes by offering advice to young science fiction writers and discussing the future of science fiction in China. [Extracted from the article]

Experiential futurism is an important subgenre of futuristic science fiction in China, with the greatest number of works and the richest content. Several important works in this genre have gained widespread influence. Experiential futuristic works focus on conveying the experience of the future through words, and often use considerable appeal to call on people to pay attention to and to think about the future. Such works can be divided into two types: those attempting to convey the experience of a stand-alone technology and those attempting to convey a panoramic experience. The methods for creating experiential futuristic fiction include wonder creation, perception reinforcement, immersion creation, emotion activation and cognitive enhancement. Experiential futuristic works play a pioneering role in today's era of virtual reality and the metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jing Jiang's book, "Found in Translation: 'New People' in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction," offers new perspectives on Chinese science fiction by examining texts brought into dialogue through translation. The book covers the early twentieth century to the post-Mao era and explores how Chinese science fiction contributes to Chinese conceptualizations of modernity. The book analyzes themes of creating "new people" through edification or bioengineering, and discusses the genre's interventions in debates about citizenry, subjectivity, and humanity in China's twentieth century. This book will be of interest to scholars and graduate students studying Chinese science fiction and modern Chinese literature. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines Yingjin Zhang's located approach to reading Chinese-Sinophone literatures as world literature, contextualized within his broader contributions to literature and cinema studies. Zhang's engagement with the intersection of Chinese-Sinophone literature and world literature traces back to the early 2000s when global interest in world literature emerged. Zhang kept challenging the Euro- and North American-centric mapping of world literature by emphasizing China's historical significance in global literary networks. Among the literary texts he was concerned with, Chinese science fiction has occupied a unique position in world literary ecology since the late Qing Dynasty. Inspired by Zhang's legacy, this paper delves into the genre of Chinese science fiction as a case study to apply Zhang's theory of world literature. It discusses how science fiction gains global attention through spontaneous and dynamic translation and interdisciplinary engagements. Zhang's emphasis on translation challenges the traditional dominance of Euro-American languages in the discussion of world literature and invites re-evaluation of the translocal, translingual, and transcultural networks of literary agents worldwide. The paper also discusses Zhang's concept of "worlding" as a method for making sense of diverse realities exemplified in science fiction's world-building, world-traveling, and world-engaging strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: The trope of formal rupture in the films of sixth‐generation Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke is a key site where ethnography and fictionality merge. Situated in Jia's documentary‐like aesthetic and oriented to a non‐Chinese global art cinema audience, "uncertain fictional objects" are tasked with a great deal of mediating labor. They ultimately tell us not only about Jia's rural and upwardly mobile characters but also the cognitive leaps they and Jia's global audience must undergo to function within a landscape of unimaginably rapid industrialization and a world in which China is undermining Western hegemony. Uncertain fictional objects—figured as literal unidentified flying objects, animated intercut scenes, and non‐diegetic voices from elsewhere—pose a frontal challenge to an abiding orientalist gaze and the very possibility of the ordinary in capitalism. Stripped of the familiar and compelled by the inexorable current of industrial economic policy, the totality and mode of cognition left to Jia and his characters are what I term "science fictionality," as opposed to simply "science fiction." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "Participatory Culture" was first put forward by Henry Jenkins in the book Text Poacher with the aim of comparing participation and the bystander (Jenkins, 2015. Participatory culture in a networked era: a conversation on youth, learning, commerce, and politics. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK). The earliest example is the study of the cultural logic of fan groups (or "fan culture"). When it was later studied more extensively, it took on different meanings. It has greatly influenced novels in the cross-media creative environment, and this has not only helped to expand the imagination and inspiration of authors but has also enriched novel plots. It can also increase audience participation and reading enthusiasm. This paper takes China's science fiction transmedia as its example to analyze the significance and role of Participatory Culture, and it does this with the intention of helping to provide suggestions for the development of transmedia fictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identification with all humanity (IWAH) is viewed as a critical construct that facilitates global solidarity. However, its origins have rarely been explored in previous literature, and no study has yet investigated the role of pop-culture in cultivating IWAH. To address this gap, this study initially focuses on science fiction (sci-fi), a specific pop-culture genre with worldwide audiences, and examines its effect on IWAH. It hypothesized a direct association between sci-fi engagement and IWAH from the narrative persuasion approach, and an indirect association via abstract construal based on the cognitive-literary approach. Moreover, the moderating role of actively open-minded thinking (AOT) in the direct and indirect association was also assessed. Results were obtained through a cross-sectional survey conducted in China (n = 570) and showed that sci-fi engagement was positively associated with IWAH; this association was also partially mediated by abstract construal. Interestingly, and inconsistent with our hypotheses, AOT positively moderated the indirect effect but negatively moderated the direct effect. Theoretical and practical implications for cultivating IWAH from the media and pop-cultural perspective were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eeriness in Han Song's stories has made him a unique writer in the New Wave of Chinese science fiction. His "eerie" writings blend the imageries of utopia and dystopia, blurring the boundaries between "good" and "bad" places and creating a new form of utopianism that can account for the rapid social transition in China since the 1990s. This essay focuses on one of Han Song's earlier novels, Red Star over America (2000), and interrogates the seemingly utopian China, governed by the omnipotent artificial intelligence Amanduo, through the lens of Moylan's "critical utopia" and Bakhtin's "adventure chronotope." The collapse of Amanduo reflects the decline of "top-down" elitist discourse in China, developed during the New Enlightenment of the 1980s. Han's protagonist's hesitant journey in the post-Amanduo world in search of a new order represents China's ideological transition during the post-socialist era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I discuss the work of Chinese sf author Han Song (1965-), focusing in particular on the novella "Meinü shoulie zhinan" [A Guide to Hunting Beautiful Women, 2014]. This novella is used as a starting point for approaching matters of language and form in contemporary Chinese-language science fiction, and exploring what these elements can tell us about the state of the genre to which they are ascribed. This essay develops on three levels: a self-reflective one, pertaining to my own experience as a translator; a formal one, in which I focus on the narrative configuration of "Meinü shoulie zhinan"; and a discursive one, in which I try to tackle the cultural phenomenon of "Chinese SF" from a wider perspective. These three levels are connected: I submit that my own experience in translating this novella, which was one of discomfort, was rooted in the code informing the text, and that the mobilization of this code therein reflects by way of metonymy the problematic mobilization of science fiction in China and the world today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese policy has turned to the globalisation of communication and stories. Beyond the diplomatic 'voice', one of the ways that Chinese culture is reaching out to the rest of the world is through science fiction. Sci-fi can be construed as a specialist thinking-circuit for cultures to build and explore experimental models of collective action at global and planetary scale. What do its stories tell us about the globalisation of Chinese culture? When the need to 'save the world' has crossed over from sci-fi to science, from entertainment to activism, and from a thought experiment to imminent danger, humans as a whole face challenges of their own making: climate change, environmental pollution, pandemics, extinctions, exclusions and nuclear annihilation. Can sci-fi inspire collective action at species scale? What role will globalising China play? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding possible climate futures that include carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation modification (SRM) requires thinking not just about staying within the remaining carbon budget, but also about politics and people. However, despite growing interest in CDR and SRM, scenarios focused on these potential responses to climate change tend to exclude feedbacks between social and climate systems (a criticism applicable to climate change scenarios more generally). We adapted the Manoa Mash- Up method to generate scenarios for CDR and SRM that were more integrative, creative, and dynamic. The method was modified to identify important branching points in which different choices in how to respond to climate change (feedbacks between climate and social dynamics) lead to a plurality of climate futures. An interdisciplinary group of participants imagined distant futures in which SRM or CDR develop into a major social-environmental force. Groups received other "seeds" of change, such as Universal Basic Income or China's Belt and Road Initiative, and surprises, such as permafrost collapse that grew to influence the course of events to 2100. Groups developed narratives describing pathways to the future and identified bifurcation points to generate families of branching scenarios. Four climate-social dynamics were identified: motivation to mitigate, moral hazard, social unrest, and trust in institutions. These dynamics could orient toward better or worse outcomes with SRM and CDR deployment (and mitigation and adaptation responses more generally) but are typically excluded from existing climate change scenarios. The importance of these dynamics could be tested through the inclusion of social-environmental feedbacks into integrated assessment models (IAM) exploring climate futures. We offer a step-by-step guide to the modified Manoa Mash-up method to generate more integrative, creative, and dynamic scenarios; reflect on broader implications of using this method for generating more dynamic scenarios for climate change research and policy; and provide examples of using the scenarios in climate policy communication, including a choose-your-own adventure game called Survive the Century (https://survivethecentury.net/), which was played by over 15,000 people in the first 2 weeks of launching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most representative writers of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Hao Jingfang is well known for her world-building that blends the characteristics of both utopia and dystopia, especially in Vagabonds. In line with the classic utopian dialectic in Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Hao Jingfang has also set up two opposing worlds: the libertarian Earth that welcomes market competition and individualis- tic pursuit for capital and the egalitarian Martian Republic built upon scarcity and under the supervision of a central archive system that provides social welfare and protection. However, neither of the two societies is "perfect" enough to be called a true utopia. People in both societies see the other world as the negation of their own, though this, again, simply traps them in an unending cycle of "negating to negation." Through such a process of negative hermeneutics, Vagabonds provides a dialectical paradigm with which to interrogate China's postsocialist transition since the 1990s while invoking a utopian hope for a post-postsocialist alternative for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Liu Cixin presented his The Three-Body Problem as hard science fiction without any political agenda, most critics accepted the author's assessment, even though he decided to bury the account of the Cultural Revolution which opens the American edition in a later chapter in the Chinese version. Related to this content, yet arguably even more sensitive, is the book's account of China's treatment of its natural environment. In this essay, I connect the discourses of science fiction, ecocriticism, and ecological science fiction, and argue that Liu's novel can be read as a bold intervention into the complex relationship between science, environmentalism, and literature in China. By combining conventional science fiction tropes such as alien invasion scenarios with its author's special talent for large-scale universe-spanning analogies, The Three-Body Problem, not unlike the virtual-reality simulation at its core, creates a realm in which ecological concepts such as ecocentrism, endangered species, and the climate crisis can be taken to their extreme, while remaining sufficiently ambiguous to be safely consumed by science fiction fans in China and the West alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes current attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing and argues that they represent a modern‐day form of magical thinking. It proposes that AI and quantum computing are thus excellent examples of the ways that traditional distinctions between religion, science, and magic fail to account for the vibrancy and energy that surround modern technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies a new fantasy subgenre that emerged in contemporary China, xiuzhen xiaoshuo (immortality cultivation fiction), which builds imaginary worlds around the magical practice of Chinese alchemy and fuses it with science and technology. After the arrival of the modern, Western triad of science, religion, and magic/superstition, alchemical practices of the Daoist tradition were labeled as a "superstition" to be eradicated; however, they persisted and began to flourish within and beyond the realm of fantasy literature in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries. Immortality cultivation fiction has generated a magical form of transhumanism, which envisions human enhancement through techniques beyond the boundaries of "proper" science and "legitimate" religion. While transhumanism in the Euro‐American West is popular among white bourgeoisie males and dominated by tendencies to reaffirm the human subject constructed by excluding the various subhuman others, magical transhumanism in Chinese fantasy explores the possibility of transcending that antagonistic relationship and making a posthuman subject and a utopian world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the impact of memory altering technologies in the science fiction drama (2016–2020) in order to show that unreconciled altered traumatic memory may lead to a dystopian breakdown of society. I bring Miroslav Volf's theological perspectives on memory into conversation with the plot of Westworld in order to reveal connections between memory altering technologies and humanity's responsibility to remember rightly. Using Volf's theology of remembering as an interpretive lens, I analyze characters' inability to remember rightly while recalling partial memories of their trauma. In virtue of this examination, I contend that memory altering technologies may inhibit individuals from relational processes of healing, such as forgiveness. Consequently, I argue that this study leads to a richer understanding of the potential that memory altering technologies have for undermining humanity's ability to interact in a relational capacity, specifically in terms of forgiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is dedicated to the analysis of The Bull’s Hour (Chas byka) by Ivan Efremov, a final novel in a series of his science fiction works about a remote communist future of the Earth. In the description of the terrestrial astronauts’ mission to a planet named Tormans, utopia and dystopia merge: the utopian communist society of the Earth is contrasted with a sinister dystopian reality of Tormans, where terror, violence, and repressions flourish and where the totalitarian mechanism of the State rejects any idea of human life valour. The description of Tormans recalls explicitly the realia of the 20th century, with particular references not only to the USA, China and the Nazi Germany, but – and, maybe, mostly – to the Soviet Union. The Bull’s Hour therefore can be read as a literary act of resistance against the regime and an expression of a hope for possible changes of the Soviet system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This response to Ashish Rajadhyaksha's essay reflects on the following themes: state promises made and broken, comparing India and China, and science fiction as national redemption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation of science to science fiction in the history of Chinese science fiction has been closely linked to both the influence of Western science and to ideals of progress, nationalism, and empire. But when we turn to China's long history of philosophical speculation, a rather different story needs to be told. This article examines the ways in which the indigenous Chinese sciences have fed into fiction, and considers the consequences for our understandings of the genre of science fiction itself and its broader social and historical contexts, as well as relationships between modernity, progress, and science in a non-Western, but globally crucial, context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines utopianism in contemporary China through the short stories "Taking Care of God" and "Taking Care of Humans" by best-selling science fiction author Liu Cixin. It argues that these stories constitute an ethical resistance to the shortcomings of the capitalist world order into which China has merged during the reform period. Read as a continuation of the modern Chinese utopian tradition as well as a reaction to contemporary trends, these stories offer an articulation of hope that a more just social order can yet be achieved despite the seemingly intractable problems facing the world today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents insights on Chinese science fiction. He believes that the development of science fiction in China demonstrates how a literary idea from foreign nations can take root in unexpected places and in unexpected ways. He thinks that the most significant characteristics is the frequent exploration of themes of liberation and release from old cultural, political and institutional systems.

When people say Shanghai looks like the future the setting is almost always the same. Evening descends and the skyscrapers clustered on the eastern shore of the Huangpu light up. Super towers are transformed into giant screens. The spectacular skyline, all neon and lasers and LED, looms as a science fiction backdrop. Staring out from the Bund, across to Pudong, one senses the reemergence of what JG Ballard once described as an ”electric and lurid city, more exciting than any other in the world.” The high-speed development of Pudong – in particular the financial district of Lujiazui – is the symbol of contemporary Shanghai and of China’s miraculous rise. Yet, Pudong is also taken as a sign of much that is wrong with China’s new urbanism. To critics the sci-fi skyline is an emblem of the city’s shallowness, which focuses all attention on its glossy facade. Many share the sentiment of free market economist Milton Friedman who, when visiting Pudong famously derided the brand new spectacle as a giant Potemkin village. Nothing but “the statist monument for a dead pharaoh,” he is quoted as saying. This article explores Pudong in order to investigate the way spectacle functions in China’s most dynamic metropolis. It argues that the skeptical hostility towards spectacle is rooted in the particularities of a Western philosophical tradition that insists on penetrating the surface, associating falsity with darkness and truth with light. In contrast, China has long recognized the power of spectacle (most famously inventing gunpowder but using it only for fireworks). Alongside this comes an acceptance of a shadowy world that belongs to the dark. This acknowledgment of both darkness and light found in traditional Chinese culture (expressed by the constant revolutions of the yin/yang symbol) may provide an alternative method for thinking about the tension between the spectacular visions of planners and the unexpected and shadowy disruptions from the street. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationship between family factors and students’ scientific literacy performance in Hong Kong, which has excelled in science performance in previous international studies. Data were obtained from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment. Multilevel analysis was used to examine the relationship between parental involvement and investment and students’ scientific literacy performance. It was found that students’ scientific literacy performance, which was measured by their science achievement and self-efficacy towards science, were significantly associated with certain types of parental investment and involvement even after controlling background factors of both students and schools. Parental investment in cultural resources and parental involvement in terms of organising science learning enrichment activities at an early age were found to be significantly associated with students’ scientific literacy performance. Activities that could be provided at an early age (e.g. watching TV programmes about science, reading books on scientific discovery, watching, reading or listening to science fictions) were found to be highly effective activities for promoting children’s science achievement and self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science fiction in language classes can be very motivating for students. The stories frequently contain social dilemmas and conflicts. Such reading demands personal responses from readers. A college EFL course using science fiction texts and films can help students whose imminent concern is not only language proficiency, but also the culture of an English-speaking world. This paper presents two responses in the author's EFL classes on helping students find joy in reading and thereby enhancing language skills through different activities, including the use of films. It was found that a lecture approach would not favour some Hong Kong students who have not had any literature training. On the other hand, a more student-oriented approach which values students' opinions made a significant difference. Such information is useful to other EFL programmes in English-speaking countries, and to an introductory literature course where there are EFL members in class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SF in mainland China is often assumed by Chinese scholars to be either non-existent or not worth studying because of its poor literary quality. This article outlines the development of Chinese sf during the twentieth century, emphasizing the constraints under which it has periodically suffered. Despite a sometimes hostile climate, the sf culture of today's China is burgeoning, with a large fan base and an openness to new ideas that bode well for the future. In this essay, I have concentrated on first-hand Chinese-language materials, including fanzines, newspaper articles, and internet home pages.