Pragmatism and Imagination: Futuristic Directions in Bulgarian Science Fiction in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Research team: Senior Asst. Prof. Reni Yankova, PhD (NBU), Nikolai Genov (Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski")


The current research project aims to bring out the connection between philosophy and literature, applying the conceptual and instrumental possibilities of Charles Peirce's pragmatism to clarify the specifics of the science fiction genre. Built on an abductive method, pragmatism will be "projected" onto science fiction to conceptualize its character as a "guessing" genre, giving not only hypotheses about the future of humanity, but very often directions, goals and dreams, searching and finding their material reality over time. The project focuses on current issues such as the technological acceleration of the present, the search for ways to biological immortality and the ways in which human knowledge "constructs" the world around it. It also focuses on the growing importance and role of the new, modern Bulgarian fiction to preserve, present, and make sense of the already available "scientific artifacts and ideas".

Image

Funding: Research Fund at the Ministry of Education and Science (M30/2 of 13 December 2018). Project term: 2 years.