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*Call for papers // Speculative forays in Terran ruins: posthuman & fictional possibilities* Session organisers: Patrick Bresnihan (Trinity College, Dublin), Naomi Millner (University of Bristol) and Franklin Ginn (University of Bristol) *This session will explore the possibilities of life within and beyond capitalist ruins by thinking with and/or writing original pieces of speculative fiction. We invite provocations that demonstrate rather than describe how speculative writing can intervene within theatres of exhausted environmental politics. We particularly encourage performative, fictional and experimental formats of presentation.* The imminent possibility of super-typhoons, tsunamis and eco-apocalyptic catastrophe provides endless fodder for media outlets and film studios that thrive off popular fears about the future (Lilley *et al., *2012). From another perspective, the imagined ruins of capitalist civilization can also provide a source of escape and possibiilty beyond such apolitical, hopeless narratives; a place for experimenting with radically different scenarios (Bater, 2016; Yusoff & Gabrys 2011). It is this second perspective, and the rich vein of literary and visual work it has given rise to, that we aim to explore in this session. We are particularly interested in drawing out the *diversity* of progressive and radical speculative fictions: while they may share a defiant refusal of the dead-end catastrophism represented in much mainstream sci-fi, they also offer many different visions of what a more hopeful future looks like, how it will be achieved, and who or what will be involved. As well as exploring the differences and tensions between different visions of the future, we are interested in exploring the ambiguities and unresolved questions that often animate individual works and writers, and how these are brought to the surface. We invite papers, performances, poetic pieces, ‘fragments’ and other speculative interventions that explore the fertile ground between science/speculative fiction and social/environmental justice. The works discussed can be contemporary or historic - we particularly encourage submissions that draw on speculative fictions from the past that may offer clues to environmental thinking in the present. Presented papers may also be partly, or wholly, composed of original fictional writing by the contributing author. We plan to hold a paper and a panel session so please indicate which one you would like to be considered for. Contributions may respond to questions including, but not limited to, the following: - How can we better understand/describe the crossovers between feminist sci-fi and experimental forms of writing emerging within the environmental humanities, particularly those that use multispecies ethnographies to explore frontiers of (post)human existence 'in capitalist ruins' (Tsing, 2016)? - How is agency conceived of in different speculative fictions? Who or what are the protagonists of socio-ecological change and how does this differ from (or reproduce) dominant theories of political change? - How have speculative fictions responded to the ‘limits to growth’ without resorting to dystopian Malthusianism? How do such narratives relate to/support concepts like degrowth (see Kallis & March, 2016)? - How have speculative fictions addressed new technologies without resorting to conservative reaction or techno-utopianism (Heise & Robinson, 2016, Wark, 2015)? How might such nuanced accounts inform debates and struggles around the in/justices of ‘green’ technologies? - How can we distinguish different imaginative fabrics that explorelife in (post)capitalist ruins, and from what sources do they emerge? How and where do solidarity, love, humour, and hope take root (and possibly flourish) when taken-for-granted infrastructures and systems collapse (Bresnihan, 2017)? - How can speculative fictions expand affective registers for coping in the Anthropocene - helping us feel more than guilt or sadness at the loss of species or plastic waste, for example? - How can speculative fictions contribute to decolonial and feminist engagements with (post)human existence in and beyond capitalist ruins? Please send abstracts/brief summaries (about 250 words) of your proposed interventions to Patrick Bresnihan ([log in to unmask]) and/or Naomi Millner ( [log in to unmask]) by *1st October *with a brief (2 sentence) bio. *References* Bater, R. (2016). Tyrannocene, Carnival, Earth. *Entitle blog*. https://entitleblog.org/2016/09/20/tyrannocene-carnival-earth/ Bresnihan, P. (2017). Hope Without a Future in Octavia Butler’s *Parable of the Sower*. In Dawney, L., Blencowe, C., Bresnihan, P. (Eds.), *Problems of Hope*. Authority Research Network. Brighton, UK. Heise, U. K., & Robinson, K. S. (2016). Realism, Modernism, and the Future: An Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson. *ASAP/Journal*, *1*(1), 17-33. Kallis, G., & March, H. (2015). Imaginaries of hope: The utopianism of degrowth. *Annals of the Association of American Geographers*, *105*(2), 360-368. Lilley, S., McNally, D., Yuen, E., & Davis, J. (2012). *Catastrophism: The apocalyptic politics of collapse and rebirth*. PM Press. Tsing, A. L. (2015). *The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins*. Princeton University Press. Yusoff, K., & Gabrys, J. (2011). Climate change and the imagination. *Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change*, *2*(4), 516-534. Wark, M. (2015). *Molecular red: Theory for the Anthropocene*. Verso Books.