The term “speculative fiction” was first popularized by Robert Heinlein, who refers to a “speculative science fiction story” as one that uses the tools of science fiction to create “a new framework for human action” (Heinlein 16-17). However, in recent years, the concept of “speculative fiction” has seen a veritable explosion of use beyond this original definition, without an accompanying theoretical or semantic discussion. This use can be seen both inside and outside the academe, where bookstores such as Skylight Books in the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles label their former “sci-fi/fantasy” section, speculative fiction. Because of this absence, we cannot even say what speculative fiction is, let alone begin asking what is its significance.


This panel seeks to begin asking questions about what speculative fiction means. It seeks papers that explore potential internal and external boundaries of the speculative, attempting to highlight precisely what it means when someone says “speculative fiction.” Perhaps speculative fiction is nothing more than an umbrella genre containing science fiction, fantasy, horror, the fantastic, magical realism, some surrealism, etc. Perhaps speculative fiction is a formal genre distinction, in which various tropes, concepts or orientations can produce a diagnosis. Perhaps speculative fiction signals a type of rhetorical structure that a text uses in relation to something like “reality” or “realism.” Perhaps Speculative Fiction follows on the heels of speculative philosophy and is any literature that produces internal general schemas through world-building (Whitehead 4-5). Perhaps it is nothing more than a form of European cultural imperialism. Perhaps, it is all these things, or perhaps none. This is the question.


This panel welcomes papers that are close readings of individual texts, or surveys of regions or subgenres. In addition, it welcomes papers on the following general topics.


Definitions of Speculative Fiction

Speculative Fiction as a Genre           

Speculative Philosophy and Speculative Fiction

Colonialism and Speculative Fiction

Speculation and Speculative Fiction

Futurity and Speculative Fiction

Difference and Speculative Fiction

The “Marvelous” and Speculative Fiction

Indigenous Knowledge and Speculative Fiction

Histories of the Concept of Speculative Fiction

Global Speculative Fictions