After the techno-futurism of the 1950s and the utopian 1960s vision of a “great society,” the 1970s saw Americans turning to the past as a source for both nostalgic escapism and serious reflection on the nation’s history. While some popular works like Grease presented the relatively recent past as a more innocent time, far away from the nation’s post-Vietnam, post-Watergate malaise, others like Roots used America’s bicentennial as an occasion for deep soul-searching. 
 
Happy Days investigates how 1970s popular culture was obsessed with America’s past but often offered radically different interpretations of the same historical events and icons. Even the figure of the greaser, once an icon of juvenile delinquency, was made family-friendly by Henry Winkler’s Fonzie at the same time that he was being appropriated in more threatening ways by punk and gay subcultures. The cultural historian Benjamin Alpers discovers similar levels of ambivalence toward the past in 1970s neo-noir films, representations of America’s founding, and neo-slave narratives by Alex Haley and Octavia Butler. By exploring how Americans used the 1970s to construct divergent representations of their shared history, he identifies it as a pivotal moment in the nation’s ideological fracturing. 

Speculative fiction imagines impossible futures and alternative pasts, alien species and angelic monsters, technological marvels and magical solutions. In recent years, however, many in its fandoms have protested the inclusion of nonwhite, nonmale, and nonheterosexual characters as betrayals of their beloved media for the sake of “wokeness.” Nostalgic Futures: The Reactionary Fantasies of Speculative Fiction Fandoms examines how contemporary fan controversies— particularly those surrounding gender, race, and sexuality in speculative fiction media—intersect with reactionary movements within and beyond fandom. This book explores how the nostalgic fantasies of fans and far-right movements contribute to broader reactionary discourses, shaping not only the past they long for but the future they fear. From the Hugo Awards and PuppyGate to Star Wars’ #NotMyJedi to Mass Effect and The Last of Us boycotts, Nostalgic Futures reveals how speculative fiction fandom has become a site of contestation over our visions of the past, present, and future.