6.5: Teaching Hopepunk Fiction with Dr Tanis MacDonald

On this episode of the podcast, Ariel chats with Dr Tanis MacDonald about her upcoming course in winter 2025 on hopepunk. What exactly is so punk about this kind of hope? Can hopepunk even be said to be a genre in its own right, or is it an aesthetic or lens that we can use to think through just why the characters are deciding to have hope in bleak situations? 

Tune in for recommendations of hopepunk novels (and poetry!), ruminations on political hope, the centrality of relationships and radical empathy to these stories, and more. Plus some academic theories informing the formulations of hope, of course. 

Links:

• Tanis MacDonald | Author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female
• Watershed Writers with Tanis MacDonald | Podcast on Spotify
• Hopepunk, explained: the storytelling trend that weaponizes optimism | Vox
• Companion Species Manifesto
• The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
• S2.9 Reframing Narratives With Ecocriticism, With Dr Jenny Kerber

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