ENGL 75.02 Climate Fiction

The 21st century drumbeat of climate doomsday has ushered in a new speculative genre of planetary crisis dubbed climate fiction or “cli-fi,” the science fiction of the late Anthropocene. But how is this genre new, and why limit such queries to fiction? How does the specter of species death and global pandemonium have a literary and cultural history as well as a geophysical, earth systems one? This seminar, through historical and contemporary critique, read transversally across an array of media from novels to theory and film, will situate where we are now with literature from the past about the emergence of steam power, land enclosures, energy systems, and Arctic exploration to account for how we might secure the future. Topics include entanglements of anthopogenic processes with other planetary effects in theories of Capitalocene, Plantationocene, and Chthulucene from the conquest of the Americas to the untimely present. Readings include eighteenth century and romantic natural history, bad weather, contemporary “cli-fi,” ecological theory, and at least one film, such as Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Ready Player One (2018).

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:LIT; WCult:W

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Department-Specific Course Categories

Senior Seminar: No Course Group