Context as Crisis: The Street is a Book by Daniel José Older | Model View Culture

April 8, 2015

creative writing / culture / literature / race / writing

Setting as crisis — the street and its many offerings of knowledge and myth, the politics hidden in daily happenstance – is really a question of context. This is what we sci-fi/fantasy people call worldbuilding, but every genre has work to do in constructing layers of universe around a narrative. When we speak about context, we’re looking at something beyond the simple fact of setting. Setting is a place and a time, but when we add the complications of power, politics, privilege – then we are beginning to build a rich, nuanced environment to deploy our characters across. This is context.