The Future Is Fiction
A Cultural History of Intergenerational Justice
Series: Oxford Studies in American Literary History;
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 17 April 2026
- ISBN 9780197839584
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages246 pages
- Size 235x156 mm
- Language English 700
Categories
Short description:
The Future is Fiction is the first cultural history of the idea that living people have an obligation to protect the world for future generations. While political philosophers have regarded intergenerational justice as an important field of study since the 1970s, the history of modern forms of obligation to the future has received almost no attention. This book traces the evolution of the Anglo-American concept of intergenerational justice, from its origins in eighteenth-century democratic revolutions to its flourishing in the 2000s. It illuminates how fiction--both popular and literary--has made the most significant, if misunderstood, contribution to the debate about how living people should act in the interests of futurity.
MoreLong description:
The Future is Fiction is the first cultural history of the idea that people have an obligation to protect the world for future generations. While political philosophers have regarded intergenerational justice as an important field of study since the 1970s, the history of modern forms of obligation to the future has received almost no attention. This book traces the evolution of the Anglo-American concept of intergenerational justice, from its origins in eighteenth-century democratic revolutions to its flourishing in the 2000s. Thus, it illuminates the contours of a political conviction that has shaped modern culture.
Margolis's central claim is twofold: first, that fiction's capacity to imagine counterfactual worlds has made the most significant contribution to contemporary understandings of intergenerational justice; and second, that this contribution has been misunderstood. Rather than inspiring political change, fiction demonstrates that complex societies will inevitably clash over what counts as a good future and what should be done to bring this future into being.
From nineteenth-century utopian novels like James Fenimore Cooper's The Crater and Mary E. Bradley Lane's Mizora, to post-nuclear war dystopias, like Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, and Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, to recent fiction about endangered children like Toni Morrison's Paradise, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, and Kazuo Ishiguru's Never Let Me Go, the tradition of future-oriented fiction recognizes that our obligation to the future is not the solution to an ethical problem, but an ethical dilemma in its own right.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Future is Fiction: The Literary Roots of Intergenerational Justice
PART ONE: Generational Thinking, 1789-1980
Chapter One: After Revolution: Building for the Future in James Fenimore Cooper's The Crater
Chapter Two: After Evolution: Creating the Future in Mary E. Bradley Lane's Mizora and George Schuyler's Black No More
Chapter Three: After the Bomb: Warning the Future in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker
PART TWO: Generational Resentment, 1980-2025
Chapter Four: Human Resources: Using Up the Future in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go
Chapter Five: The Innocence Project: Protecting the Future in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village and Toni Morrison's Paradise
Coda: The Great Do Over: Fixing the Future in the Time Loop Novel
Bibliography
