In this modern moment, there have been a myriad of proposals exploring the contours of “speculative fiction”—be that social, environmental, &c. This session seeks to deconstruct the ways in which the speculative shapes the contours of the “real” or realized. Though sensationalization can be found in works of fiction, the threads of one’s reality—intersectional as it may be—provides a rich narrative that encourages further exploration and the fears provided in what we would safely relegate to fiction. However, there remains a “seeping out” of those fears that can eerily be represented in the real world. This session seeks a variety of research endeavors and resources that speak to this overarching theme: the intersectional concerns ultimately shape the rich narratives from a wide array of perspectives. It also encourages not only nationally-driven perspectives but also those on a potentially-universal level in the process. Exploring such landscapes provides helpful speculations and phantasms that certainly shape American thought and culture, yet these also demarcate the borderless ways such levels of discourse can carry apropos of politics, social stigma, violence, and other manners by which it comes to align with the fears of the “other” and certainly beyond. This session engages with the connections we can collectively draw between fact, fiction, and lived experience.

This session engages in a modern discourse surrounded and centered in speculative fiction and its real-world corollaries. The borderless phantasms that shape public fear and relevant threats find homes in both the fiction that we may find solace but seeps into the real, wherein the implications provide dangerous results. This session engages in a multidisciplinary approach and encourages an array of "texts" broadly construed that speaks and aligns with the overarching theme. This panel is presented in-person at NeMLA that will convene from March 6-9 in Newport, Rhode Island. For more information, please feel free to go to https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22302. Please also feel free to contact me if you have any questions.