Is Science Fiction the New Realism?

Sign up to receive our weekly cultural-recommendations newsletter. Science fiction has historically been considered a niche genre, one in which far-flung scenarios play out on distant planets. Today, though, such plots are at the center of our media landscape. The hosts are joined by Joshua Rothman, an editor and writer at The New Yorker, who makes the case for science fiction as an extension of the realist novel, tracing the way films like "The Matrix" and "Contagion" have shed new light on modern life. The boundaries between science fiction and reality are increasingly blurred: tech founders like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have cited classic sci-fi texts as inspiration, and terms like "red-pilling" have found their way into our political vernacular.