Brave New Worldbuilding

In my first semester, at Beloit College I took the introductory course for the Critical Identity Studies (CRIS) program, Sex, Race, and Power. I loved the opportunity to explore other ways of knowing and being in the world. I loved that every voice was valued in the classroom. I loved how it challenged my understanding of myself. I took to the thoughtful nature of the course with joy and ease. Then, we were asked to reflect on our immigration story. I didn’t think I had an immigration story. When my great-grandparents arrived in this country, they shed their Irish heritage and assimilated. CRIS taught me that my lack of an immigration story told a story of its own. This assignment was my first interaction at the college with what I now call worldbuilding, and I was just getting started.

The following spring semester, I was a teaching assistant for the introductory CRIS course and was able to design an original lesson. I chose an article-turned-book I first read in high school called Laziness Does Not Exist (But Unseen Barriers Do) by Devon Price. I had always believed that time I spent resting was time I was wasting. Price condemns the view that laziness is a moral failing and that needing rest is a crime. This was radical to me. From Price’s ideas, I wrote discussion questions and selected reading excerpts. I told myself, if just one student questioned how we determine our value, it would be enough. But it wasn’t. When the lesson ended, I wanted to do more.

I told my advisor, Natalie Gummer, professor of religious studies and critical identity studies, that I wanted to create a class. My dad had created a class when he was a student at the liberal arts college he attended. When I was growing up, he would drive me to a coffee shop on Saturday mornings, and we’d pick a topic to debate. While I doubt I was a great debate partner at the age of five, the ritual instilled in me a belief that my opinions were worthy of serious consideration. Professor Gummer gave my proposal serious consideration, and she offered to be my advisor for a special project. I could tell that she was thinking of it as a future endeavor. After all, we were meeting the day before the spring submission deadline for special project proposals.

All activism is founded on hope. It begins with a belief that society not only should change, but that it has the capacity to do so. Motivated by these words, which I would write on the course syllabus, I filled out the form and brought it to the registrar. In spring 2023, I began work on Introduction to Worldbuilding, the central course for a new interdisciplinary major.

Worldbuilding explores how systems are created and, conversely, how they can be unmade so that new worlds can be created. For the introductory course, I developed the concept of “speculative activism” as an example of worldbuilding. Curiosity, imagination, and activism lay the foundation of an effort to confront the burnout that results from existing in our current world and to acknowledge the ways in which all progress begins with internal healing and creating community. “Laziness” as a moral failing, for example, is one manifestation of a system that benefits from people devaluing their own needs for the sake of labor that benefits those who control it. The course units invite students to examine the world around them, to make changes within themselves and their relationships, and to envision systemic change. The final creative project aims to bring the world they currently inhabit closer to their ideal world.

As a student, I completed three special projects to do with worldbuilding. The first was the Introduction to Worldbuilding course, which I co-taught with Professor Gummer in spring 2024. The second special project, in spring 2025, was a proposal for worldbuilding blocks as an interdisciplinary major. The third was my CRIS capstone project for which I wrote a 23 page pedagogy document, explaining my rationale, selected readings, and structure, so that anyone teaching this course would understand my choices and have the tools and the space to make their own changes, to continue to build the world. Worldbuilding is currently offered as one of four interdisciplinary majors or minors made up of blocks that can be completed through the Center for Integrative Learning (CIL). This means students can build their own major from sets of four related courses.

Ray Broad explains Worldbuilding blocks to prospective students during Discovery Day in February.
Credit: Erin Conway

Worldbuilding consists of four blocks that I designed: Introduction to Worldbuilding, Building Material Worlds, Meaning Making, and Nonfiction Worldbuilding. Building Material Worlds involves analyzing material culture and creating or curating art and material objects. Meaning Making examines forms of knowledge and analyzes the ways in which narrative shapes the world. Nonfiction Worldbuilding critically examines the world we inhabit and the ways we can worldbuild through various forms of nonfiction creation such as journalism, video production, creative nonfiction, and data narratives.

We worldbuild every day, often through unconscious choices. What we call fiction has the power to shape and make what we consider to be reality. “Speculative activism” is the introduction to worldbuilding I chose, because I wanted to embolden students to make changes in themselves and their communities, to bridge the gap between the art we create and the world in which we are creating it. It will no doubt evolve after I leave campus. Already, the course has been facilitated by Professor Gummer and two former students while I studied abroad, and students I never taught have thanked me for creating the course as well as initiated the design of their own interdisciplinary blocks. As I complete my final semester at Beloit College, I wait to hear back from graduate schools, sure that wherever the next few years find me, I will always have the capacity and desire to make change and work to build my ideal world into the spaces around me.