Date of Award

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English and Writing Studies

Department

English

First Reader/Committee Chair

Premoli, Martin

Abstract

The threat of anthropogenic climate change is discussed almost exclusively in terms of “scientific” data to the exclusion of the humanities. For some worlds, climate change has already destroyed their ways of life and forced them to adapt. Climate fiction – or cli-fi – written by BIPOC authors is one way we can begin to think of how the planet is not just one world but a plurality of worlds. This project centers authors and world-makers who come from communities that have been left at the margins of the science fiction and cli-fi genres. By looking at fictions from a multitude of authors with various epistemological backgrounds, it may be possible for students to experience these texts as transitional objects. Doing so can help them renegotiate their relationship with anthropogenic climate change and the communities that are rendered invisible as a result of neoliberal hypercapitalism. One goal is to have students begin to challenge whether ideas of “green capitalism” are capable of the radical change that climate catastrophe demands of us. These authors all create imaginary worlds that are informed by their authors’ present. In this sense, their futures are inextricably linked to the pasts. Creating new classrooms that are informed by these epistemologies and that push students to think critically about the connections between environmental justice and social justice, then, is something that I believe should be sought after. College classrooms are a great place to get students ready for these conversations that they will inevitably have in the public.

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