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About this site: EDU-FUTURISM: A radical and imaginative literary genre for the education revolution
Short Description: This is an interactive journal dedicated to creative writing by anyone passionate about education, schooling, social justice and creative writing. The theme of all manuscripts is “imagining schools and education in the possible science-fiction future.” We may imagine a utopia, or a nightmare. What futures might we imagine that we can change or create?
ANYONE is welcome to submit a manuscript for possible publication! Submission Guidelines here.
Why? The idea for an electronic literary repository, and for the concept of edu-futurism, originated with an intersection between the work of Tom Poetter entitled The Education of Sam Sanders (2006) and the radical fictional genre called Afrofuturism, a genre which includes the work of Sun Ra, Octavia E. Butler, Janelle Monáe and W. E. B. Dubois, Afrofuturim
Afro-futurism embodies feminist, anti-colonial, and queer fiction written by authors and artists of color who address issues of oppression and social justice through science fiction and fantasy narratives.
Edu-futurism will become a science fiction/fantasy literary genre through which we (parents, students, teachers, community activists, writers, artists) can imagine, critique, examine, explore, or create issues around public education, writing that is visionary, revolutionary, or dystopian. Indeed we have arrived at a point in education policy where fact is stranger than fiction, and therefore fiction may lead us toward a way out that is humanitarian, sustainable, just and democratic. In 2006 using a futuristic fictional narrative, Poetter imagined a dystopic world where children would (in his future) spend their days at computers logging in data and taking daily online tests. And here we are. In the not- so- fictional present…. doing precisely that in public schools to millions of children.
Fiction can reflect dystopian realities and oppressive worlds, but perhaps it (we) can also imagine our way towards the revolution we wish to see. This site will become the space where we can share our fantasies, our fears, our predictions and our hopes with one another.
“Struggle is par for the course when our dreams go into action. But unless we have the space to imagine and a vision for what it means to fully realize our humanity, all the protests and demonstrations in the world won’t bring about our liberation” (Robin D. G. Kelley)
The in·ter·reg·num 