Climate Fiction

We are now living on a planet suffering from the initial effects of climate change. Let us explore how literature may serve as our guide as we begin to imagine how we might live with, and possibly mitigate, these effects in the future. We will read a diverse set of stories from across a wide range of genres, including realism, science fiction, and fantasy. While the vast majority of futures depicted in climate fiction are dystopian, if not outright post-apocalyptic, one of our primary goals in this course will be to move from this obsession with dystopia to an understanding of the importance of imagining utopia, even when facing the bleakest of possible futures.