An Australian Research Council funded DECRA grant held by A/Prof Sarah E. Truman. The project (December 2022 - December 2025) focuses on speculative fiction as an interdisciplinary method for thinking about the world and mode of literary engagement in diverse pedagogical settings.
foregrounded youth-authored speculative fiction writing in three geographies (Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom) as a method for thinking about the future-present. 70 student stories were published in 'Future Imaginaries' (see below), and are informing academic papers (forthcoming);
engaged transdisciplinary scholars who use speculative fiction to think about their own research (see below for edited collection);
provided a literature review of speculative fiction on the project's themes based on participants' suggestions (see below).
Research and Teaching with Speculative Fiction grew out of Sarah E. Truman’s ARC DECRA project on literary education, speculative fiction, and social change. Rather than beginning as a conventional edited collection, the project brought together 25 interdisciplinary scholars to think with speculative fiction in relation to their own research, teaching, and fields of inquiry.
Truman then brought the essays into high school and university classrooms and workshops, where students and teachers read the pieces, discussed the speculative fiction texts, and helped develop the thinking prompts that accompany each chapter. This feedback was returned to the scholars, who revised their essays and prompts in response to the classroom and workshop conversations.
The resulting book keeps that process at its centre: each chapter introduces a speculative fiction text, connects it to a scholarly discipline or research practice, and includes prompts for further thought.
Available Open Access here: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350557758
Introduction by Sarah E. Truman
Forward by: Steven Shaviro
Chapters by:
Sikeena Ahmed, Chris Davies, Elizabeth de Freitas, David Fortin, Al Fricker, Kelly Fritsch, Tristan Gleason, Kenia Hale, Max Haiven, Matt Keynes, Yam Lau, Chris Mayes, Sid Mohandas, Danielle Purifoy, Rumen Rachev, Michael Richardson, Michael Salu, David Ben Shannon, Chad Shomura, Phil Crockett Thomas, Ali Rıza Taşkale, Nirmal Vadgama, Ash Watson, Ben Williamson, and Kathryn Yusoff.
University of Melbourne - ARC DECRA Fellow
