Flying velocipedes, scent claviers, surviving on pills. These are some of the novelties in what has been heralded as the first Swedish science fiction novel: Oxygen och Aromasia: Bilder från år 2378 (Oxygene and Aromasia: Pictures from the Year 2378), written by the cosmopolitan liberal writer and publicist Claës Lundin (1825–1908) and published in 1878. This chapter discusses Oxygen and Aromasia by relating the novel to other works by Lundin and situating it in a political and cultural context. In his writings, Lundin placed science and technology as well as liberal reforms at the centre of society's journey into the future. Departing from the interdisciplinary field Critical Future Studies, this chapter analyses how Lundin's novel is “opening up or closing down imaginative possibilities” (Godhe & Goode 2018). What kind of people are supposed to live in Lundin's futural fictive landscape? By deconstructing the novel Oxygen och Aromasia and emphasising the cracks in the narrative, this chapter shows that Lundin's usual progressiveness (in his other writings) is more ambivalent in this tale. At the same time, it asks questions concerning how his novel both widens the scope of possible futures and shuts down imaginative possibilities.

The introduction to the first issue of the Journal of Social and Cultural Possibilities.

I skuggan av vår samtids stora kriser pågår en ny rymdkapplöpning som involverar inte bara en mängd nationella aktörer utan också tech-miljardärer såsom Elon Musk och entreprenörer som Richard Branson. Deras ambitioner att utforska eller vad man många gånger väljer att kalla ”kolonisera” rymden för kommersiella intressen har blivit känt som New Space. Michael Godhe skriver om hur planeten Mars genom tiderna fungerat som en projektionsyta för visionärt tänkande och om hur dagens Marsdokumentärer reproducerar drömmen om kolonisering av andra himlakroppar. 

Essay review of Anna Bark Persson's essay collection Annorstädes [Elsewhere].

A theme section in Fafnir based on four contributions from the conference "SpecFic2021: Time and History", Karlstad University December 1-3 2021, edited by Godhe, Oakes & Varis.

Karl-Heinz Steinmüller once remarked that SF “has become a unique medium for discussing science and technology, their prospects and hazards, and more generally their social and cultural impacts” (339). In this sense, SF as a genre forms a bridge between science/technology and the public, and is a vital aspect of public engagement with issues arising from scientific development. One such technological subject today is the development of artificial intelligence (AI) research.

At the same time, there is a growing concern that representations of AI in recent SF and popular media are misleading (Goode; Graeber). In this article, ethnologist Daniel Bodén and cultural studies researcher Michael Godhe discuss AI in the light of the future of work with Jerry Määttä, one of the foremost SF scholars in Scandinavia.