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FrancoAngeli Journals

Articoli. Climate chenge and geography

No. 2 (2022)

Climate Fiction according to Ecocritical Geopolitics: a research agenda

  • Elena dell’Agnese
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa2-2022oa13805
Submitted
maggio 11, 2022
Published
2022-05-30

Abstract

The idea that a climatic cataclysm can alter the balance of the planet has been present in science fiction since the end of the nineteenth century. Narratives focused on the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change, however, in the first two
decades of the third millennium literally multiplied, so much so that the expression Climate Fiction has been coined. Beyond the environmentalist warning included in these narratives, a further level of analysis can be identified in the examination of the discourse conveyed by them, in relation to power relations among human beings and between human beings and the environment. In this article, after a brief introduction to the theoretical approach identified as useful for this purpose (Ecocritical Geopolitics), a research agenda will be articulated, identifying the fields of inquiry to be opened to explore Climate Fiction in reference to its spatial references, its main protagonists, and its discourse about the environment.

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