Speculating about the edges of thought or thinking ‘beyond thinking’ might be the most radical possibility of fiction. This kind of storytelling can be an important space for experimentation, where characters and their connected tropes take the form of radical agents for social change. Daniel Rourke The Noise of Becoming: On Monsters, Men, and Every Thing in Between In this talk Daniel Rourke refigures the sci-fi horror monster The Thing from John Carpenter's 1982 film of the same name. The Thing is a creature of endless mimetic transformations, capable of becoming the grizzly faced men who fail to defeat it. The most enduring quality of The Thing is its ability to perform self-effacement and subsequent renewal at every moment, a quality we must embrace and mimic ourselves if we are to outmanoeuvre the monsters that harangue us. Ytasha Womack Afrofuturism: Imagination and Humanity The use of the imagination for self-development and social change is one of the greatest tenants of Afrofuturism. Ytasha Womack will explore the resilience encouraged through the championing of the imagination, the tensions that arise through embracing hope, the separation of humanity from itself through the creation of the technology called race, and the power of storytelling. Laurie Penny Feminism Against Fascism Feminism, like many political movements, is science fictional by nature. How can utopian ideas, including ideas about justice, carry us through the darkest times and inspire art and action?