Open AccessGoverning the future: perspectives from literary studies – commentary to Jones
Author(s) -
Lieven Ameel
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
fennia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.346
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1798-5617
pISSN - 0015-0010
DOI - 10.11143/fennia.80379
Subject(s) - storytelling , distancing , qualia , sociology , aesthetics , economic justice , literary criticism , history , epistemology , literature , narrative , art , covid-19 , philosophy , consciousness , political science , law , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , medicine , disease
Taking its cue from Rhys Jones’s article “Governing the future and the search for spatial justice: Wales’ Well-being of Future Generations Act”, this commentary reflects on some of the challenges attached to attempts to govern the future. It proposes perspectives from literature and literary studies to enrich how we imagine the future. This commentary maps out how literary fiction and other forms of future storytelling associated with qualia – the “how it feels” of future possible worlds – may provide an important complementary to other, more distancing, modes of envisioning the future.