BONUS CONTENT
ARTHUR C . CLARKE CENTER FOR HUMAN IMAGINATION AT UC SAN DIEGO
Visions of the Future : Inspired by famed visionary Sir Arthur C . Clarke ( pictured ), the Center brings together scientists , artists and engineers to better understand , enhance and encourage imagination .
THE UNLIMITED POSSIBILITY OF HUMAN IMAGINATION
HOW DO WRITERS IMAGINE WORLDS THAT HAVE never been or what the future might be like ? There has been relatively little research on how humans imagine , despite it being a central aspect of our experience .
Founded in 2011 , the Arthur C . Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego has been investigating how imagination works — from the mundane , like imagining what kind of apple you ’ d like to eat for a snack before going to the store , to the fantastical , like what life in California might be 500 years in the future .
The Clarke Center , named after famed visionary Sir Arthur C . Clarke , brings together scientists , artists and engineers to collaborate on research projects across four main areas of focus : the neuroscience of imagination ; tools that enhance imagination ( including emerging technology and advances in how we teach and learn ); futures literacy , or cultivating our capacity to imagine change over time ; and looking to the cosmos for inspiration , whether by developing new telescopes that allow us to see farther back into the origin of the universe or working with individuals with disabilities in zero-gravity to understand how they can live and work in space .
A central goal of the Center is to produce an “ Atlas of Imagination ” that serves as a roadmap to the wide neurodiversity of imagination . Some highly innovative individuals , like J . Craig Venter ’ 72 , PhD ’ 75 , the first to sequence the human genome , have aphantasia , or a complete lack of visual imagination . Others with hyperphantasia have an intrusively powerful visual imagination . Other aspects of the neurodiversity of imagination are the various ways humans imagine sounds ( and create music and languages ), concepts , scenarios , works of art , memories , the experience of others ( our foundation for empathy and compassion ) and more . By better understanding how imagination functions , the Center aims to help society tap into the power of imagination to solve today ’ s most pressing issues .
A key program for the Center is the annual Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers ' Workshop , the longest-running and most prestigious training ground for emerging speculative fiction writers in the world . The workshop brings 18 writers from around the world to UC San Diego for six weeks , and they work intensively with a group of professional writers to develop their craft . Among its alumni , Clarion is proud to count many of the field ’ s most celebrated writers including Octavia E . Butler , Ted Chiang , Cory Doctorow , Nalo Hopkinson , Kelly Link , Nnedi Okorafor , and UC San Diego alumnus Kim Stanley Robinson ’ 74 , PhD ’ 82 .
Ideas that began in the imagination of speculative writers — whether it is the geosynchronous satellites that Clarke first conceptualized , the strategies for surviving political upheaval that Butler described in her Parable series , or how we might avoid a planet-wide climate disaster as seen in Stanley Robinson ’ s The Ministry of the Future — have been and will continue to be the spark for critical innovation and social change . — Patrick Coleman
Learn more at imagination . ucsd . edu
UC SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE 39