A Call for Speculative Syllabus Writing

Abstract

This conceptual paper explores the boundaries between what is currently imaginable for syllabus writing in higher education and what might become possible through engaging radical imagination(s). Taking an intersectional and anti-colonial approach, I interrogate the politics of syllabus writing and consider what might become of a syllabus in a more just future. I engage speculative syllabus studies as a means to discuss and write syllabi differently, approaching syllabus writing as a genre-bending project. Through an analysis of three exemplars that subvert conventions in syllabus writing, I suggest new possibilities for syllabi as tools to engage communities toward political organizing. I invite syllabus-writers to consider how their syllabi might cultivate collective resistance and community organizing in their respective contexts.