In the last century, science fiction has become an incredibly powerful tool in depicting alternative social imaginaries, particularly those of the future. Extending beyond their fictious nature is a commentary on the stark realities of modern society. The ‘cyberpunk’ subgenre, for example, offers a dystopian critique on the dangers of technological dependence and hypercapitalism. In studying science fiction, future imaginaries can be developed as utopian goals for governance systems to strive for. In contrast to cyberpunk, the subgenre of ‘solarpunk’ (...) depicts a utopian society where humanity lives locally, sustainably, and in harmony with nature. This paper deconstructs solarpunk media to describe three guiding principles of solarpunk: anarchism, ecology, and justice. As an anarchist community, solarpunk strives for a post-scarcity, post-capitalist society devoid of hierarchy and domination. As an ecological community, solarpunk strives for local, self-sufficient, and sustainable living where both the human and non-human flourish. Finally, as a just community, solarpunk strives to rid society of marginalization and celebrate authenticity. These three principles can be used to guide humanity towards a utopian, solarpunk future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Solarpunk Conference by From Imagination to ActionAriel Kroon and Kees SchullerFrom Imagination to Action, The Solarpunk Conference, June 24, 2023, VirtualThe Solarpunk Conference was born out of the desire to see an accessible space dedicated to discussions of solarpunk. With solarpunk growing in popularity in both popular and academic circles, the need for such a space seemed obvious to the organizers. The (...) organizers also felt the need to bridge academic and popular conversations in a way that was productive and opened further discussion, as the disconnect between the academic and popular spheres is often damaging to social movements. [End Page 634]This was especially important for solarpunk because of its nature as being built from below. Solarpunk is crowdsourced, having evolved over the years from social media aesthetic to literature to social movement, with few canonical critical texts. Taking into consideration the distributed democratic nature at the heart of solarpunk, the conference aimed to be accessible to the widest array of people possible: in this regard, the conference was incredibly successful. As a remote conference, the event was already more financially and practically accessible than an in-person event. Tickets were available to those across the financial spectrum, with a large percentage of our tickets being pay-what-you-can, or free to those in need; live captioning was provided on the day of, volunteers were available throughout the day to address accessibility concerns, and the ability for attendees to request live translations or other accessibility options was also provided. Further, while still retaining academic integrity and value, the majority of the presentations were legible to the largely non-expert, non-academic audience.The other key goal for the conference was to create a space for conversation and networking between otherwise disconnected members of the solarpunk community. To this end, alongside the Zoom webinars used for presentations, a Discord server was created for attendees that saw consistent engagement, networking, and project sharing, further allowing presenters to engage with attendees after their talks, enabling extended Q+A sessions that otherwise would have not been possible within schedule constraints. This hybrid model between Zoom and Discord proved incredibly effective, allowing for a wide range of interactions, and encouraging the community building and idea sharing that were key to this conference.Throughout the conference, themes of climate grief and the disaffection and despair of late-stage neoliberal capitalism returned to the fore, with speakers positioning solarpunk as a way to combat these negative affects. Mirroring these themes, most speakers emphasized the necessity of direct (solarpunk) action to escape the dystopian long-present of contemporary corpo-capitalism. Perhaps because of these same themes appearing in the movement as a whole, solarpunk is often reduced to an aesthetic of green utopia, which is an unfair stereotype given that many strands of solarpunk thought could be labeled as anti-utopian or in the vein of critical utopian theory. Solarpunk’s explicit aim to imagine sociopolitical and economic realities beyond late-stage capitalist neoliberalism requires it to divest from what Lauren Berlant calls “stupid optimism”—“the faith that adjustment to certain forms or practices [End Page 635] of living and thinking... will secure one’s happiness” (2011, 126). Solarpunk rejects classical utopian picturing of a future world that operates according to the logics of the present, which in turn have been shaped by the (often racist, sexist, and classist) logics of the past (cf. Williams 2018; Kroon 2021). It is also important to note that solarpunk does not adhere to a singular vision of the future but instead acknowledges the biodiversity of nonhuman nature and the diversity of the human experience, and so encourages multiple futures that serve the peoples and lands on which they rest.The conference began with opening remarks by one of the organizers, Lindsay Jane, followed by a land acknowledgment by Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes, traditional knowledge-keeper and Indigenous activist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Treaty Six. Chagnon-Greyeyes welcomed participants in nehiyaw (Cree), acknowledging her location in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Alberta) and the Indigenous nations there, and reminding attendees to think about their connection to the land that they were on. She shared a teaching... (shrink)

We’re solarpunks because the only other options are denial or despair.Utopian Studies, Futures, and Anticipatory Studies all focus, if in different ways, on the past, present, and futures. Utopian narratives anticipate, to cite Abensour, “what is different, the wish for the advent of a radical alterity here and now.”1 A tool that all disciplines use is storytelling—utopias as narratives by definition, Futures and Anticipatory Studies as critical and inquisitive tools. The Solarpunk Futures game taps into these disciplines by creatively (...) exploring still-possible or radically new worlds and societies.The Solarpunk Surf Club is an artists’ collective that has dedicated its work to the... (shrink)

How to conjure up a picture, for instance, of a town without pigeons, without any trees or gardens, where you never hear the beat of wings or the rustle of leaves—a thoroughly negative place in short?Though now home to the majority of the world's human population, cities—indeed the politics of life itself—have always been multispecies endeavors. The quote above is Albert Camus's description of Oran, the fictional town that is the site of a devastating plague outbreak in his seminal work, (...) The Plague. It is meant to conjure a decidedly dystopian urban landscape due to its marked absence of nonhuman life. Such a scenario is precisely what the visionary artistic and literary movement Solar Punk seek to counter... (shrink)

Since 1959, when C.P. Snow delivered his seminal lecture The Two Cultures on the lack of understanding between scholars working in the humanities and their colleagues from science departments, the gap between the two groups has been one of the most notorious clichés of contemporary Western culture. The aim of this article is to show that this seemingly insurmountable abyss between sciences and the humanities that was brought to the forefront during the mid-20th century is slowly receding into history. Literature (...) studies today is heavily indebted to modern science. Biology, physics, and ecology are among the most important subjects scholars of literature have to take into account. In order to prove this point I shortly describe literary genres which introduce modern science to the readers: science fiction, cyberpunk, solarpunk, lablit, quantum fiction, and cli-fi. I also refer to the newly-emerged schools of criticism-science fiction studies, ecocriticism and evocriticism-to show how scholars discuss these texts within the framework of the humanities. Additionally, I give a sample discussion of one of the cli-fi’s classics, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World and also shortly discuss two science fiction novels concerned with the civilisational conflict between science and humanities: Stanislaw Lem’s His Master’s Voice and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. (shrink)