Future Thinking

Department of English research project

Changing the conversation about what lies ahead so we can better imagine, understand and articulate the new worlds we might want to create.

The future is everywhere in modern culture. Writers, filmmakers, politicians, consultants, scientists, futurists, advertisers give us their visions of it. Professions are devoted to understanding and predicting it: forecasters, strategists, innovators, business analysts. Disciplines have emerged to investigate their practices – Future Studies, Futurology, Futures etc.

Future Thinking seeks a broader understanding of how people imagine the future. It compares different methods, different times, different genres. It is based on the idea that the better we understand past and present future thinking, the more constructive a contribution we can make to imagining a desirable future.

In the series of FUTURES books, launching in 2024, we ask contributors to take their visions of the future to a new level.

Here you can find out more about the background to the FUTURES series, and the different strands of Future Thinking work the series originators – Max Saunders and Lisa Gee – undertake.

Research team

The FUTURES series from Melville House
Find out about the books in the series from the Melville House website

Behind the FUTURES series
Read about the books and ideas that inspired the Series

FutureVisions
Add your FutureVision and explore other people’s ideas and imaginings of our futures

Birmingham's Future Thinking Network
Discover our other future thinking work