Concentrating on a powerful, emerging genre, Tatiana Konrads Climate Change Fiction and Ecocultural Crisis provides a survey of popular narratives that further our understanding of climate change in contemporary fiction. Konrad advocates for the expansion and redefinition of the cli-fi genre and argues that industrial fiction from the nineteenth century is the first example of climate change fiction. Tracing the ways through which cli-fi outlines a history of our modern ecocultural crisis, this book demonstrates how the genre employs four major thematic clusters to achieve this narrative: weather, science, religion, and place.
Focusing on a diverse range of issues, including fossil fuels, cheap energy, the intricacies of humanmore-than-human relationships, and postcolonial geographies, Konrad illustrates how cli-fi transcends mere storytelling. The genre ultimately emerges as an important means to forecast, imagine, and contemplate climatic events.
The book invites a broadening of the environmental humanities discourse, asking readers not only to deepen their understanding of the current climate crisis, but also to consider how cli-fi culture can be viewed as an effective method to address climate change.
Recenzijos
In Climate Change Fiction and Ecocultural Crisis, Konrad has made a significant contribution to ecocritical literature, providing an engaging and innovative approach to a specific genreclimate change fiction. The climate fiction selections Konrad analyzes augment readers understanding of climate change and its ramifications, and she buttresses each chapters arguments with substantial scholarship. This work will appeal to ecocritics and literary scholars alike.Robin Murray, professor emeritus of English, Eastern Illinois University, author of Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen, coauthored by Joseph K. Heumann, professor emeritus Eastern Illinois University
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One. Weather: Energy, Meteorology, and the Birth of Climate Change in
Nineteenth-Century Fiction
Chapter Two. Science: Scientists / Science Tropes, Climatic Darwinism, and
the Future in Climate Change Fiction
Chapter Three. Religion: Eco-Theology and Biblical Imagery in Climate Change
Fiction
Chapter Four. The Postcolonial: Environmental Racism, Fragmentation of the
World, and Survival in Climate Change Fiction
Afterword. Coronavirus Lessons for Climate Change Procrastination
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Tatiana Konrad is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna, Austria, the principal investigator of Air and Environmental Health in the (Post-)COVID-19 World, and the editor of the Environment, Health, and Well-being series at Michigan State University Press. She is the author of Docu-Fictions of War: U.S. Interventionism in Film and Literature and the editor of Imagining Air: Cultural Axiology and the Politics of Invisibility; Plastics, Environment, Culture, and the Politics of Waste; and Transportation and the Culture of Climate Change: Accelerating Ride to Global Crisis.
