Caliban: French Journal of English Studies (Mar 2020)
Apocalyptisme ou collapsologie ? L’effondrement dans la cli-fi
Abstract
As they try to imagine the future of climate change based on our current attitudes towards the environment, cli-fi novels generally picture the collapse of Western civilization. Whereas the first cli-fi stories envisioned apocalyptic outcomes to climate change, recent novels tackling the issue turn away from end of the world narratives. As such, they become more complex, taking into account political, social, and scientific data and theories, including those which pertain to the collapse of society, known as collapsology. With that in mind, this article discusses the possible impacts of cli-fi on people’s imagination of climate change and attitudes towards the environment, and it discusses the contribution of fiction to our understanding of climate change.
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