CoFutures

CoFutures team member Merve Tabur's research was featured by Universiteiten van Nederland, the Netherlands’ leading platform for universities, and Institutions for Open Societies at Utrecht University. In this short column, she discusses her work on futurisms, science fiction from Southwest Asia and North Africa, the writings of Egyptian SF author Ahmed Naji, and a volume she co-edited with Sami Ahmad Khan (The Speculative Route: Futures from South and Southwest Asia and North Africa).

The column is available in English at the link below.

Science Fiction, maar dan heel anders Hoe zit het met de toekomst? Mijn collega Merve Tabur onderzoekt science fiction uit Zuidwest-Azië en Noord-Afrika. Daarin spelen niet de eeuwige techbro's met doemscenario's of 'oplossingen voor de wereld van morgen' de hoofdrol.

📣📣 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 2/2026.

Research into any aspect of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres is welcome from a range of disciplines.

The deadline for article submissions is 30 June 2026.

Submissions should be made through the online portal: https://fafnir.journal.fi/about/submissions

This issue is scheduled to be published in December 2026.

Check out the CfP for details:

4 days to go!! Send in your abstracts for the inaugural issue of Polyfora: A Journal of Speculative CoFutures. If you are a researcher, practitioner, or artist looking to have a conversation about radically new futures we can't wait to hear from you. Remember to send in your abstracts by the 15th of December 2025. https://journal.cofutures.org/inaugural-issue-re/
Can't wait! 🖖

𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖: 𝘼 𝙅𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙁𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨, co-edited by Jomy Joseph, Merve Tabur, and Joel Letkemann, invites submissions for its inaugural issue "Re-"!

𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖 is an online platform for speculating about possible futures. The journal encourages creative and interdisciplinary collaboration and non-traditional forms of knowledge production as a way to foster a multi-faceted dialog about possible futures among researchers, practitioners, artists, and communities in a way which amplifies voices that are often marginalized in images of potential futures. 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖 recognizes that to speculate about possible futures is to intervene in futures, and so maintains a commitment to multiplying possibility, including platforming and amplifying those futures that are already emerging across the pluriverse.

The journal accepts peer-reviewed articles, stories, artworks, and essays from many languages and perspectives.

You can find the call here: https://journal.cofutures.org/inaugural-issue-re/

Abstract submission deadline: 15th December 2025

Learn more about 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖: https://journal.cofutures.org/about/

𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖: 𝘼 𝙅𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙁𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨, co-edited by Jomy Joseph, Merve Tabur, and Joel Letkemann, invites submissions for its inaugural issue "Re-"!

𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖 is an online platform for speculating about possible futures. The journal encourages creative and interdisciplinary collaboration and non-traditional forms of knowledge production as a way to foster a multi-faceted dialog about possible futures among researchers, practitioners, artists, and communities in a way which amplifies voices that are often marginalized in images of potential futures. 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖 recognizes that to speculate about possible futures is to intervene in futures, and so maintains a commitment to multiplying possibility, including platforming and amplifying those futures that are already emerging across the pluriverse.

The journal accepts peer-reviewed articles, stories, artworks, and essays from many languages and perspectives.

You can find the call here: https://journal.cofutures.org/inaugural-issue-re/

Abstract submission deadline: 15th December 2025

Learn more about 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙖: https://journal.cofutures.org/about/

Three conversations on Nordic-Arctic Literature and Indigenous Futurisms, produced by 20Tal in collaboration with CoFutures, the Tranströmer Library, and Tjállegoahte – the center for Sami writers. The project received support from the Swedish Arts Council, the Nordic Culture Fund and NAPA (The Nordic Institute in Greenland).

Nordic-Arctic literature and indigenous literary futurisms (digital content) - 20TAL 20TAL’s project Nordic-Arctic conversations were filmed in front of a live audience at the Tranströmer…

✨CALL FOR PAPERS✨

CoFutures team member Merve Tabur and Müge Özoğlu (Utrecht University) has launched a new platform at Utrecht University: the Southwest Asian and North African Literatures Network. The network's goal is to bring together researchers and creatives with a shared interest in the literatures and cultures of Southwest Asia and North Africa and their diasporas.

The SWANA Lit Network is now accepting abstract submissions for its inaugural symposium. Papers focusing on SFF & Futurisms are welcome!

Symposium at Utrecht University, 10 April 2026
Literature, Care, and the Ethics of Living in Southwest Asia and North Africa

For more information on the network and the CfP, visit our website:
https://swanalit.sites.uu.nl/news-and-events/

Exciting news: The Inhumans and Other Stories (The MIT Press, 2024), edited by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, is a Locus Award finalist in the anthology category. Thank you to all Locus award voters. Universitetet i Oslo (UiO) UiO - Det humanistiske fakultet European Research Council Norges forskningsråd

2025 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists Congratulations to all of the Locus Awards top ten finalists! The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 21, 2025, during the in-person Locus Awards Ceremony, held in the historic Nile …

CoFutures team member Merve Tabur's review of Islam, Science Fiction, and Extraterrestrial Life (written by Jörg Matthias Determann) is now out in the International Journal of Middle East Studies (published by Cambridge University Press)! 🛸 This seminal book contributes to the growing body of scholarship on SFF from South and Southwest Asia and North Africa and its accessible language and interdisciplinary approach make it a compelling read not only for scholars and students of history, literature, and cultural and religious studies but also for general readers curious about ufological imaginations.

You can access the review here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743825000029

An excellent special issue (part 1) on Tropical Futurisms, edited by Ysabel Muñoz-Martínez, Jueling Hu, Nsah Mala, and Anita Lundberg.

Vol. 24 No. 1 (2025): Tropical Futurisms: Thinking Futures

"Tropical Futurisms: Thinking Futures" (part 1 of a double special issue) seeks solidarity in the tropics via imagining the future together in plural forms. Thinking tropical futurisms envisions a decolonial tropics by archiving the past-future and rebuilding worlds, including through Indigenous and multispecies knowledge and experience conventionally not seen as belonging to the future. The vibrancy of Indigenous, Caribbean and Latin American, Afro and African, South and Southeast Asian, Pacific, and Tropical Australian future possibilities creates new rich and complex forms of theorizing and storytelling.

Vol. 24 No. 1 (2025): Tropical Futurisms: Thinking Futures | eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the Tropics "Tropical Futurisms: Thinking Futures" (part 1 of a double special issue) seeks solidarity in the tropics via imagining the future together in plural forms. Thinking tropical futurisms envisions a decolonial tropics by archiving the past-future and rebuilding worlds, including through Indigenous and...

Does Science Fiction Shape the Future? Conversations with visionary science fiction authors on the social impact of their work.

CoFutures team member Merve Tabur's new article "Settling the Desert, Unsettling the Mirage: Urban Ecologies of Arab and Gulf Futurisms in Ahmed Naji's Using Life" is published in Utopian Studies! The article examines Arabic sf, climate change, and urban futures in their relationship to Arabfuturisms and Gulf futurism. (Accessible here: https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.35.1.0187 and on ProjectMuse)

The article is part of a critical forum on "Cultural Encounters and Textual Speculations in the Mediterranean," edited by Burcu Kayışçı Akkoyun, Emrah Atasoy, and Merve Tabur. This critical forum aims to highlight overlooked works of science fiction and offer a more nuanced perspective both on visions of the future from the Mediterranean and on conceptions of the Mediterranean.