Tuesday, January 19, 2016

''Promising Futures: Cli-Fi and the Temporal Imagination'' - a paper presented at the ASLE 2015 conference by Rebecca Evans

 
 
''Promising Futures: Cli-Fi and the Temporal Imagination''  
 
--  a paper presented at the ASLE 2015 conference by Rebecca Evans
 
ABSTRACT:

This paper will argue that cli-fi serves an important function in the public perception of climate change by helping readers grapple with the temporality of global warming. I will discuss the formal strategies adopted by recent speculative fiction in order to depict prolonged and slow-moving environmental disaster, with an emphasis on Octavia Butler’s Parable trilogy (I will have the opportunity to examine the unpublished third book in manuscript form prior to ASLE through a Huntington Library fellowship).
 
Characterizing this series as a foundational early work of cli-fi, I will use the Parable books to illuminate the significant role of contemporary cli-fi in helping readers comprehend the temporally distributed threat of climate change while still thinking critically about ethical actions in the present. I will conclude by considering the adoption of cli-fi’s temporal strategies by other aesthetic genres and forms, including the Future Library project and predictive/projective multimedia.
 
The Cli-Fi Literature Panel at ASLE 2015 last year (which was organized Greta Gaard and Serpil Oppermann) was a great success with the panelists presenting thought-provoking papers.
 
Two graduate students from the University of Oregon, Stephen Siperstein and April Anson,  were among them. They both teach cli-fi classes. 
 
Steven's course syllabus  can be accessed here: "English 104: Introduction Climate Change Fiction"   http://www.asle.org/wp-content/uploads/ASLE_Syllabi_CliFiSiperstein.pdf
 
 
Other panelists were
 
Rebecca Evans: 
Yates, Michelle: 
Laura Wright: 

Their papers:

Michelle Yates, Columbia College Chicago, MANLINESS AND CIVILIZATION IN ''SOYLENT GREEN'''S EDENIC RECOVERY NARRATIVE

April Anson, University of Oregon, SURVIVANCE ECOLOGY: SOLAR, THE IPCC HAIKU, AND THE MANIFEST STAKES OF FAILURE IN CLI-FI FORM

Stephen Siperstein, University of Oregon, TEACHING CLI-FI AND LESSONS IN AFFIRMATIVE SPECULATION

Laura Wright, Western Carolina University, THE FACT OF THE FICTION, AND THE FICTION OF THE FACT: CLI-FI, GEOSCIENCE, AND TRUTH

Rebecca Evans, Duke University, PROMISING FUTURES: CLI-FI AND THE TEMPORAL IMAGINATION

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