This thesis seeks to define Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, Constant's New Babylon, and Norman Bel Geddes' Futurama as works for speculative fiction or design. Created decades before \"Speculative Fiction\" and \"Speculative Design\" were coined by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, I draw on the exploration of the speculative genre as it exists in the 21st-century and seek to apply such understandings to better understand these impactful, multi-media works from the 20th-century. In positing such works as speculative, this thesis explores the ways in which speculation operates, the relationship it creates with its viewer, and the real-world stakes of these imaginative projects. I have been particularly interested in the construction of futures that hold a degree of malleability and could exist, whether in our minds or in our built environment, if we have the stimulus to envision them. From Murakami to Constant and then to Geddes, these works possess increased levels of plausibility, with the degree to which they become imaginable to their viewers/readers subsequently determining the scale of the stakes of each project.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["Speculative fiction","Design"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 24216