Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis

Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis argues that the popularity of the term "climate fiction" has paradoxically exhausted the term's descriptive power and developed into a black box containing all kinds of fictions which depict climatic events and consequently lost its true significance.

• Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis* argues that the popularity of the term "climate fiction" has paradoxically exhausted the term's descriptive power and that it has developed into a black box containing all kinds of fictions which depict climatic events and has consequently lost its true significance.

Aware of the prospect of ecological collapse as well as our apparent inability to avert it, we face geophysical changes of drastic proportions that severely challenge our ability to imagine the consequences. This book argues that this crisis of imagination can be partly relieved by climate fiction, which may help us comprehend the potential impact of the crisis we are facing. Strictly assigning "climate fiction" to fictions that incorporate the climatological paradigm of anthropogenic global warming into their plots, this book sets out to salvage the term's speculative quality. It argues that climate fiction should be regarded as no less than a vital supplement to climate science, because climate fiction makes visible and conceivable future modes of existence within worlds not only deemed likely by science, but which are scientifically anticipated.

Focusing primarily on English and German language fictions, Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis shows how Western climate fiction sketches various affective and cognitive relations to the world in its utilization of a small number of recurring imaginaries, or imagination forms.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of ecocriticism, the environmental humanities, and literary and culture studies more generally.

Autorentext

Gregers Andersen **is a postdoctoral researcher in environmental humanities at the Department of English, Stockholm University. He has published articles in several international journals on how literature, films, cultural theory, and philosophy can shed light upon human and non-human conditions in the Anthropocene.

Klappentext

Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis argues that the popularity of the term "climate fiction" has paradoxically exhausted the term's descriptive power and that it has developed into a black box containing all kinds of fictions which depict climatic events and has consequently lost its true significance. Aware of the prospect of ecological collapse as well as our apparent inability to avert it, we face geophysical changes of drastic proportions that severely challenge our ability to imagine the consequences. This book argues that this crisis of imagination can be partly relieved by climate fiction, which may help us comprehend the potential impact of the crisis we are facing. Strictly assigning "climate fiction" to fictions that incorporate the climatological paradigm of anthropogenic global warming into their plots, this book sets out to salvage the term's speculative quality. It argues that climate fiction should be regarded as no less than a vital supplement to climate science, because climate fiction makes visible and conceivable future modes of existence within worlds not only deemed likely by science, but which are scientifically anticipated. Focusing primarily on English and German language fictions, Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis shows how Western climate fiction sketches various affective and cognitive relations to the world in its utilization of a small number of recurring imaginaries, or imagination forms. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of ecocriticism, the environmental humanities, and literary and culture studies more generally.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Birth of a New Type of Fiction

A Brief History of Global Warming

What is Climate Fiction?

The Context of this Book

Presentation of Content

Chapter 1: Cultural Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics and Preunderstanding

Approaching Climate Fiction

Chapter 2: The Social Collapse

From the Broken Social Contract to Climate War

Post-apocalyptic Worlds

The Uncanny as a Mood

The Uncanny Relation to the World

Chapter 3: The Judgment

The Judgment in Cultural History

The Judgment in Climate Fiction

Serres, Latour, and the Imagination Form

Another Uncanny Relation to the World

The Judgment as a Denial of Responsibility

Chapter 4: The Conspiracy

The Conspiracy in Cultural History

Doomsday Atmospheres

The Arrival of the Super Computer

Crichton and The Conspiracy

The Suspicious Relation to the World

Chapter 5: The Loss of Wilderness

The Loss of Wilderness in Cultural History

The Destructiveness of Humanity

Another Suicidal Ice Lover

Heidegger and the Imagination Form

The Loving Relation to the World

Chapter 6: The Sphere

The Sphere in Cultural History

Bubbles

The Globe

Sloterdijk and the Imagination Form

The Anthropotechnical Relation to the World

Chapter 7: The Birth of a New Perspective

Beyond the Grid of the Imagination Forms

Two Functions of Climate Fiction

Bibliography