(A few of them, anyway. You can see more of the things I’m working on or at least working adjacent to at the Center for Science and the Imagination Projects page.)
Center for Science and the Imagination
At the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, we create inspiring, inclusive, technically grounded visions of the future by bringing together artists, authors, and educators with scientists, technologists, policy thinkers, and community members. We publish collections of science fiction, nonfiction, and art; lead informal and formal education initiatives around science, technology, culture, and society; host public events and forums and create podcasts and videos about science fiction, media arts, and possible futures; conduct interdisciplinary research about collaboration and imagination, and more. Ed Finn is the founding director of CSI.
Climate Imagination Fellowship
The Climate Imagination Fellowship brings together top science fiction authors with community members, thinkers, researchers, and changemakers from around the world to create visions of positive climate futures shaped by concerted action in the face of crisis, and grounded in real science. These visions will honor local particularities and insist upon equity and justice, while imagining efforts that could be scaled up for global change. Too often, our only climate stories are ones of warning and alarm. To help us build pathways forward to a vibrant, thriving decarbonized future, we also need inspiring stories that can catalyze action in the present.
Applied Imagination Fellowship
The Applied Imagination Fellowship inaugural class of five fellows are working on projects to motivate transformative change and advance visions of inclusive futures. Their project advance CSI’s goal of supporting transdisciplinary projects to inspire collective imagination for better futures, including new ways of living and thriving amid path-breaking technologies and new forms of governance.
Future Tense + Future Tense Fiction
Future Tense is a partnership between ASU, the New America Foundation and Slate magazine to explore emerging technologies and their transformative effects on society and public policy. Future Tense hosts events and public conversations, and publishes original content from policymakers, scientists, humanists and journalists. Future Tense Fiction is a series of original near future fiction, nonfiction, and illustrations that appears monthly in Slate, and is a partnership between ASU, Slate, and 3 Arts Entertainment. Ed Finn is the academic director of Future Tense.
Imagination and Climate Futures
The Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative is a partnership between he Center for Science and the Imagination and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University dedicated to inspiring a sense of agency and responsibility towards climate futures.