Cli-fi literature class on tap at Columbia University Summer Sesssion, May 27 begins...

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY has an important class on tap starting May 27

 

PROFESSOR: ...............Darragh G. Martin, an Irish expat in New York for over 10 years and a playwright and a novelist, see THE KEEPER. Born in 1980. From Dublin.



Course Description

The Great Question before us is: Are we doomed? The Great Question before us is: Will the Past release us? The Great Question before us is: Can we Change?"(Tony Kushner, ''Angels in America: Perestroika'')

 

In 2005, Bill McKibben called for more writers and artists to address the climate crisis, arguing that political action would be impossible without greater cultural engagement. Ten years later, anthologies, labels, and patterns have emerged, allowing us to consider an emerging canon of ‘cli-fi' literature and explore how the Age of the Anthropocene imagines the story of climate change.

 

At once incredibly dramatic (exacerbating floods, droughts, and other extreme weather) and tremendously slow (with glaciers outpacing governments in speed), climate change presents particular challenges for storytellers. Examining a variety of forms (including plays, novels, films, and writing for children) we will consider how contemporary literature negotiates these and other challenges.

 

What happens to science when it becomes embedded within stories? What are the tensions between presenting climate change as a story of intergenerational responsibility or one of global inequity?

 

How is climate justice imagined by contemporary stories?

 

How are new developments in literature (hyperlinked poems, video series, interactive websites) adapting to represent climate change?

 

Our readings will focus on literature from the USA and United Kingdom, with additional readings from scientists, critics, writers, and activists from across the world. Each week we will focus on a different party in climate change's complex ecosystem, from the fossil fuel companies causing the climate crisis to the next generation of children reading and writing about climate change. Authors studied will include Barbara Kingsolver, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Tom Chivers, Steve Waters, Tarell McCraney, and Vandana Shiva. We will also watch and discuss the following films: Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Day after Tomorrow, and The Island President.


School of the Arts, Barnard, Columbia College, Engineering and Applied Science: Undergraduate, Engineering and Applied Science: Graduate, Graduate School of Arts and Science, General Studies, School of Continuing Education, Global Programs, International and Public Affairs

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