Critics’ Seminar: Science Fiction – Reality and Its Alternatives

The term “multiverse”—the idea that many universes exist, including our own—is often attributed to the science‑fiction author Michael Moorcock, who wrote in the 1960s. In reality, however, both the term and the concept have a much longer history. In this lecture, Adam Roberts will trace the history and conceptual development of alternative realities as an idea that quite literally expands reality—not only in science fiction and speculative prose, but in a broader cultural and intellectual context. The lecture will connect the many fictionalized versions of this idea to its contemporary scientific interpretations and propose a new understanding of the proliferation of these realities.