Climate Change Fiction
Gareth Evans
Hutton Honors College
Climate change is unquestionably the largest issue of the 21st-century. The issue is so large, in fact, that many people flee when it is named. Climate change is a difficult topic, and I’m not sure, to be honest, how effectively we’ll deal with that topic in my class. What we’re going to do, however, is read novels, essays, and a report that asks us to consider climate change. We will read excerpts from the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA). NCA is a representative climate pathway, and it makes predictions about what will happen at differing rates of climate change. Of the novels we read, only The Ministry for the Future takes up such a challenge, and we’ll measure its power—if that’s the word—against that of the report. Like The Ministry for the Future, Gun Island also has a global setting, while The Marrow Thieves is set in Canada, Salvage the Bones takes place in Louisiana immediately before Hurricane Katrina, and Parable of the Sower is set in California. Rosen’s essay, as one would expect from its title, discusses the science of climate change, while Ghosh’s “Stories” asks if it’s possible to write a realist novel about climate change. One goal of the class is to think about what difference, if any, the semester’s reading makes to your attitude to climate change.
Reading List Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones Excerpts from the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA)
WRITING REQUIREMENTS: Two essays, both of which must be at least 1500 words long. Six blog posts, each of which refers to the reading for the class.
Catalog Information: HON-H 234 LITERATURE OF TIME AND PLACE