Workshop · Zagreb · May 2025
Exploring science fiction as a space for language, cultural memory, identity and imagined futures.
During the week marking 5 May – Macedonian Language Day, I had the pleasure of leading a workshop at the Macedonian Cultural and Information Centre in Zagreb titled Science Fiction: The Macedonian Story.
Macedonian Language Day is an occasion to reflect on language not only as a means of communication, but also as a foundation of cultural memory and identity. It provided a particularly meaningful context in which to explore science fiction: a genre that is often associated with distant planets, future technologies and imagined societies, but which can also tell us a great deal about who we are, where we come from and how we imagine our place in the world.
The workshop combined a lecture, an interactive quiz and an open conversation with the audience. Together, we explored science fiction as a cultural and literary space in which questions of history, identity, belonging and the future can be examined from unexpected perspectives.
Rather than approaching science fiction simply as a genre of technological speculation, the discussion focused on its capacity to transform familiar cultural experiences into imagined worlds. What happens when we read science fiction from a Macedonian perspective? How do local histories, languages and cultural memories enter stories about the future? And what can speculative fiction reveal about the present?
These questions are closely connected to my broader research interests in cultural studies and science fiction, particularly the ways in which literature negotiates migration, identity, otherness, memory and imagined futures.
One of the most rewarding aspects of the event was the participation of students studying Macedonian language and culture in Croatia, who attended at the initiative of their teachers.
Their presence gave the workshop another dimension. The interactive quiz became an opportunity not simply to test knowledge about science fiction, but to create a conversation across generations about literature, language and cultural belonging.
The audience actively contributed throughout the event, sharing interpretations, asking questions and discussing how fiction can provide alternative ways of understanding reality.
In her opening remarks, Mimi Gjorgoska Ilievska, Director of the Macedonian Cultural and Information Centre in Zagreb, emphasized the particular relevance of the event during the week dedicated to the Macedonian language, highlighting the importance of opening new perspectives on language and literary creativity and considering fiction as a way of understanding the world around us.
The project “Science Fiction: The Macedonian Story” was supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of North Macedonia.