
Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination brings writers, artists and other creative thinkers into collaboration with scientists, engineers and technologists to reignite humanity’s grand ambitions for innovation and discovery.
The center serves as a network hub for audacious moonshot ideas and a cultural engine for thoughtful optimism. We provide a space for productive collaboration between the humanities and the sciences, bring human narratives to scientific questions, and explore the full social implications of cutting-edge research.
More about our many projects Meet our staff
Upcoming events
- We are working on our schedule, check back here for future events.
Download free books

A collection of short stories by writers from around the world, exploring the climate crisis and how human responses to it will shape the futures we will inhabit. Featuring winning stories from our 2020 Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest.

A collection of science fiction stories, art, and essays exploring how the transition to solar energy will transform cities; catalyze revolutions in politics, governance, and culture; and create diverse futures for human communities. Our contributors imagine solar futures in four U.S. cities: Chicago, San Juan, Portland, and San Antonio.

A collection of science fiction stories, art, and essays exploring human futures powered by solar energy, with an upbeat, solarpunk twist. What will it be like to live in the photon societies of tomorrow? How will a transition to clean, plentiful energy transform our values, markets, and politics?

A collection of short stories by an international group of authors, drawn from our 2018 Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest, plus a foreword by our lead judge, Kim Stanley Robinson.

In this novella, award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Elizabeth Bear and artist Melissa Gay imagine a near future informed by visceral VR simulations to catalyze positive change.

Why should we go to space? Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities takes on the challenge of imagining new stories at the intersection of public and private—narratives that use the economic and social history of exploration, as well as current technical and scientific research, to inform scenarios for the future of the "new space" era.
Listen to the Imagination Desk podcast
Apple Podcasts Spotify RadioPublic LibsynIn this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Jenna sits down with award-winning singer/songwriter and author Mohale Mashigo. In this conversation, Mohale shares her experiences in multimedia storytelling, and questions if aliens are truly as scary as Weste...
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Chinelo and Yvette sit down with critically-acclaimed author Tobi Ogundiran. In this conversation, Tobi takes us into horror and haunting, talking about how fairytales reveal what different societies fear–and lo...

In this conversation, Ayodele talks to us about African metaphysics and the importance of queer and gender-expansive characters to resisting colonization.

In this conversation, Temi talks to us about neuroscience, corporate control, and how futures of AI technologies relate to histories of racism and colonialism.

In this conversation, Shingai talks to us about building community across the African diaspora, and challenges us to consider that taking African knowledges seriously means rethinking time itself.