About

The Critical Worldbuilding project is an ongoing research project based at the City University of Hong Kong. Along with over a dozen contributors from around the globe, we are currently in the process of writing a textbook on the critical and creative praxis of worldbuilding, to be published in 2020-2021.

If you keep up with recent television shows, movies or games, chances are you’ve heard of worldbuilding. We’ve always built worlds, of course - our most ancient myths and legends, from Egypt to China to Greece, are proof enough of that. But from blockbuster transmedia franchises to sprawling open-world video games, creating vivid, fully-realized worlds seems more popular than ever. It would follow, then, that we should put some serious thought into how these worlds are built - and how we can build them better.

The purpose of this book is to give readers the critical and analytical tools to build worlds. This is not a step-by-step guide - we aren’t interested in how to draw maps, structure historical timelines, or model political systems. Nor is this an analysis of existing built worlds. Rather, this is a survey of theories, concepts, methods and tools that will help readers critically think about the worlds they build. We want readers to ask why they need maps in the first place.

We define worldbuilding as the intellectual, organizational and logistical process of conceptualizing an internally-consistent setting. Constructed worlds are difficult to define, but we know them when we see them - as places in which we can imagine ourselves, settings that inspire thought, attention and speculation, and concepts that make us look anew at our own world and our place within it.

Our target audience is young creative practitioners - undergraduate students, young artists or people with limited academic experience - who are engaged in worldbuilding projects and who want to think critically about their creative process. While there are many textbooks on the market that purport to teach worldbuilding, none of them approach it with an eye informed by critical theory. We are interested in what theoretical thinking can offer to the practice of worldbuilding.