10/15, "Narratives of Struggle," bell hooks

I want to start by repeating my favorite maxim in my interactions with theory: bell hooks is never wrong. That seems to hold true again today, although it feel like she could have dug further into how critical fiction is positioned as a useful resistance tool uniquely compared to other genres/mediums. I think I'll start by attempting to explore that question.

So, how does critical fiction work in a way that, say, a critical memoir does not? Well, bell hooks begins to explain that it's the component of imagination, which she explains using a quote by Gabriel García Marquez talking about how the source of imagination is reality... so what is the difference here? Working to decode this further, it seems like maybe she is saying that imagination is where resistance is held maybe because a lack of imagination (or an imagination unrelated to reality) leaves reality intact? Okay, I think that sort of makes sense. Now, what if I think of it with critical essays? After sitting with that for 5 minutes: essays exist in a very weird space between fiction and nonfiction (sometimes). Thinking about some of my favorite essays, they participate with imagination in typically grounded ways that García Marquez would likely approve of. I think that when those essays use fiction, they share a lot of qualities with what hooks describes as critical fiction. One example that comes to mind was after FIDE announced their new regulations around trans folks playing chess and a trans woman player explained what this would look like for an idealized trans girl who led a perfect life and wanted to play chess, going through how these regulations would make her participation in chess hellish. This way of using imagination as a tool of resistance is very mundane and typical and that's precisely why I mention it.

I think applying the concept of critical fiction in the classroom is useful as a point of comparison between works. Looking at 2 readings and asking the differences in both how they engage (or don't) with criticality and with fictionality (and possibly with critical fictionality) could be fuel for interesting discussion. It also might be helpful if I, as a teacher, am selecting a reading and want to have a focus on how the text engages with those ideas.

Umurangi Generation is a video game that is one of my favorite examples of critical fiction. It's about taking pictures. It's about climate change and indigenous liberation. SPOILER: the game ends with you getting assaulted by a cop. It's a rough, good time.

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