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During the first decades of the twentieth century the American public developed a fascination with the concept of the future war. Indeed, by the interwar years future war tales had become a staple of American popular culture, primarily via the mass circulation pulp magazines, where they played a pivotal role in promoting the growth of the science fiction genre. This study considers the role of the future war story in engaging the American public's interest in military affairs during the first decades of the twentieth century, with a specific focus on the role of the author/editor/publisher Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the use of popular culture within the novel and film "Ready Player One," by Ernest Cline, and the independent internet film "Grandmother's Gold," by Brian Jordan Alvarez. The author discusses how pop culture consumers have begun utilizing do-it-yourself (DIY) media, explores "Ready Player One" in terms of the fetishization of pop culture, and examines "Grandmother's Gold" as a science fiction counter-narrative.

This paper investigates consumer response to advertising for future, to-be-released products. Drawing on recent consumer psychology research on the optimism bias, positive uncertainty, and affective (mis-)forecasting, we explore consumers' positive bias for "the next product." A first experimental study of responses to car ads investigates how advertising the same product before versus after release has significant, favorable effects. Future-oriented advertising evokes greater elaboration and stimulates more positive evaluations of both ads and brands. The second experimental study replicates and extends these findings with mineral water ads for both familiar and unfamiliar brands. The third study rules out limited availability as a competing explanation and extends the findings by including a time lag and actual product consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to this special issue arising from the October 2017 conference held at OCAD University on the subject of “Uncertain Futures.”

This article traces the resonances and responses to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination and the Apollo space missions in the late 1960s in poetry and song, arguing that performances of the black extraterrestrial—donning the perspective and guise of the alien—articulate partially secularized prophesy and non-national planetary perspective. The black extraterrestrial blurs the different senses of historical and narrative possibility to stake out new historical possibilities. The article concludes with a brief consideration of contemporary popular instances of black anti-humanism, emphasizing the black android as the development of the black extraterrestrial in the post–Cold War era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Disney park is usually condemned as a kind of Platonic cave of illusions, where visitors are so mesmerized by the verisimilitude of the displays that they begin to take it for 'reality'. However, the park does not so much simulate the 'real' as celebrate the art of simulation, the ability to construct fantasy worlds as if they are 'real'. Main Street USA was designed to evoke the 'excitement of a dawning century of new technology'. This theme was continued in the Carousel of Progress attraction. There were four scenes showing the life of a typical American family through the generations and the ways their lives were continually improved by the latest advances in technology. Horizons, which opened in 1983, was a kind of sequel to Carousel. It showed the same all-American family living and working in the 'brave new world' of the future. Both Carousel and Horizons were ostensibly designed to promote the ideal of a technologically controlled 'reality'. However, the shows were actually a demonstration and celebration of the power of 'imagineering' - the ability of Disney's Imagineers to simulate the real. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the film "Up" directed by Pete Docter and the comic book series "Future Lovers" by Saika Kuneida. It references the hermeneutic theories of philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Particular focus is given to the role of the self in "Up" and "Future Lovers" and to the protagonists' attempts to create alternative future life courses as a gay man and as a widower. Details on the role of animation in both works are presented. Other topics include imagination, memories, and socio-cultural change.

Abstract: Various proposals and criticisms are addressed. Particular attention is given to future developments, both theoretical and experimental. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a Delphi study on the futurity of information literacy in academic libraries. It notes that information literacy is a fundamental doctrine of academic librarianship. A survey was given to 13 information literacy experts about the plans that could research on information literacy evolution throughout the next ten years. The results reveal that the majority of the respondents were affirmative regarding the future of academic information literacy. Moreover, the study concludes that the issues on information literacy are outside the control of librarians and librarians expect the changes made by advances and technology, and try to effectively adjust as possible.

In a recent article in Sociology, Anderson et al. (2005) explore the plans Scottish young adults formulated for their future lives, drawing largely on survey evidence. They do so in the context of taking issue with qualitative research conducted by Brannen and Nilsen (2002) concerning how British young people and young Norwegians think about the future. This article compares the respective studies in greater depth. First, it examines the different aims of the respective studies and their conceptualizations. Second, it looks at issues of methodological difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the critical perspective of Afrofuturism as a coherent narrative tradition of science fiction. It discusses a series of Afrofuturist stories that restore people of color to this future imaginary literature and demonstrates how these stories follow a historical trajectory. It also proposes two reasons why there is a need to recover the history of Afrofuturism involving scholarly purpose and political purpose.

The article discusses the significance of forecasts for predicting future events. There are several reasons for concern about the future that poses a problem to people if they could only predict it in a reasonably effective way. It is noted that civilization has already developed additional tools to deal with the future, such as resiliency, theory and market accountability, which could be used in improving abilities to deal with, and accelerate changes in the future.

Abstract: This article attempts to answer the question, whether and how it is possible to make scientific forecasts in social sciences through the investigation of the actual scientific-philosophical problems and methodological aspects of futures studies. 1 [1] The plural case of future is used because many kinds of futures exist in the present, i.e. many kinds of futures might unfold. It is true that only one alternative/variant will be realized but after realization we speak about the present and not the future. Following a critical analysis it describes the scientific–philosophical features of uncovering and forecasting the possible futures from the classic predictions to the latest approaches. In the methodological chapter it turns its attention to the impossibility of making scientific predictions and demonstrates the methods with the help of which—reacting to the challenges of uncertainty, instability and various changes—futures studies can perform its original function, i.e. supports present decisions providing information about the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the state of cultural studies, primarily in the United States and Northern Europe. Arguing for a radically contextualist and conjuncturalist understanding of the project of cultural studies, it suggests that cultural studies emerged in particular forms as a response to a particular geo-historical conjuncture. However, while the conjuncture has changed significantly, these older forms of cultural studies have congealed into a ‘‘center’’ that has limited its ability to contribute to a better understanding of ‘‘what's going on,’’ of the possible future and the realities and possibilities of both domination and contestation. The paper suggests an understanding of the present conjuncture as a struggle, from both the right and the left, against liberal modernity and the attempt to shape an alternative modernity as the future. It suggests some of the ways cultural studies might have to rethink itself if it is to respond to this conjuncture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caspar Weinberger and Peter Schweizer collaborated on the five scenarios of possible conflict in 'The Next War,' which was published in 1996. In 1871, Sir George Tomkyns Chesney wrote a short story, 'The Battle of Dorking,' which was featured in the May issue of 'Blackwood's Magazine.' It so affected the reading public that it became a best selling pamphlet and Chesney also had to write a quasi-history to frame the battle. The Weinberger-Schweizer scenarios can be classified under the same genre as the Chesney story.

Editorial. Discusses the pervasiveness of futuristic fantasies in the media and society in general. Relation between the obsession with the future and the pre-Millennium tension that Western society is experiencing; Extreme dystopian and utopian perceptions and projections as an expression of pre-Millennium tensions.

Examines the imagining of non-Western cyberculture in the motion picture `Wicked City,' by Peter Mak. Redeployment of cultural imaginaries of Hollywood movies, Japanese manga, and Hong Kong's ideology; Depiction of colonialism, power of the nation-state, androgyny, time, history and future in the film.

Examines the European perspectives on a vision of the future in the film `Until the End of the World.' Speculations on the global future; Imagining of technological development in the future; Emphasis on the position and function ascribed to the narrator.

Discusses the premises for the anti-Western discourse in which the poet Velimir Khlebnikov, together with the artists Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova were engaged from about 1906 until the outbreak of war in 1914. Analysis of the nature of the paradigm of the future; Reemergence of the nationalist discourse in the middle of the nineteenth century with the appearance of the Slavophiles.

The article presents a review of the Northeastern archaeology. This literature is limited to synthesizing the trends and results of investigations since the Andover conference opened new directions for research and to developing one of these ecology, as a framework for future investigations. Limitations are particularly stated because evoking ecological theory and testing sacred old ideas and newly generated hypotheses with the plethora of research techniques now available, future summaries will be radically different. However, with recognition that the human population is a significant variable in ecology, archeological discoveries in the Northeast will have growing importance for anthropology, general ecology, and all disciplines concerned with man's adjustments to a forest environment.

Emerging technologies will shape the future. Hints of what those technologies might be can be gleaned by keeping an eye on scientific journals and popular science periodicals. This column highlights some of these clues that have caught the eye of one of Futures Research Quarterly's associate editors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]