“‘Hard’ sf is all about technology, and ‘soft’ sf doesn’t have any technology, right? And my books don’t have technology in them, because I am only interested in psychology and emotions and squashy stuff like that, right? Not right. […] Technology is the active human interface with the material world.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Rant About “Technology”
The “science” that scaffolds our science fiction can come from so many unexpected places.
A core memory of January 2020, for me, is trudging through rock-salted slush toward the first meeting of a doctoral seminar on “Animals.” The course, which was cotaught by several professors gathered together from different humanities and sciences departments, explored how humans think and theorize about animals… and what it means to say we have “kinship” with the nonhuman world. Like, do we really? How do power and consent affect our relationships to other living creatures, and also to each other?