The Representation of Climate Change in Different Literary Genres
01.10.2021
By: Annika Spenger
Supervisor: Dr. Gesa Lüdecke
In recent years, climate change has become an increasingly popular topic in contemporary novels. Many famous authors have joined this trend and are writing fictional texts about climate change, such as Ian McEwan, Michael Crichton, and Margaret Atwood. The impact of this recent tendency can even be observed in the coining of a new literary term to describe the development of climate (change) fiction, or “cli-fi” in short. At the same time, the influence of many different genres ranging from utopia, dystopia, young adult fiction, satire, thriller, and noir can be observed in cli-fi.
Therefore, the main aim of this final project is to answer the question of which way different genres of climate fiction novels deal with the topic of climate change and how the genre impacts readers’ perception of the issue. The three genres that were chosen for this study are satire, utopia, and thriller. With the example of Ian McEwan’s Solar, satirical elements in climate fiction are highlighted. Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 was chosen for showing the influence of utopia and thriller elements, with Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow also forming the base of the last part of the study. The final project consists of three interrelated blog posts published on Seeing the Woods, with each blog post focusing on one climate fiction novel that was written in a different genre and the impact this genre has on the portrayal of climate change. Apart from literary analysis, this project also aims to highlight the breadth of climate change fiction and should give the reader the possibility to be immersed in climate change literature.