Climate Change and the Contemporary Novel

Adeline Johns-Putra

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108427371
• eBook ISBN: 9781108615853
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

Climate change is becoming a major theme in the contemporary novel, as authors reflect concerns in wider society. Given the urgency and enormity of the problem, can literature (and the emotional response it provokes) play a role in answering the complex ethical issues that arise because of climate change? This book shows that conventional fictional techniques should not be disregarded as inadequate to the demands of climate change; rather, fiction has the potential to challenge us, emotionally and ethically, to reconsider our relationship to the future. Adeline Johns-Putra focuses on the dominant theme of intergenerational ethics in the contemporary novel: that is, the idea of our obligation to future generations as a basis for environmental action. Rather than simply framing parenthood and posterity in sentimental terms, the climate change novel uses their emotional appeal to critique their anthropocentricism and identity politics, offering radical alternatives instead.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Ethics of Posterity and the Climate Change Novel
• Chapter 2 The Limits of Parental Care Ethics: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Maggie Gee’s The Ice People
• Chapter 3 Overpopulation and Motherhood Environmentalism: Edan Lepucki’s California and Liz Jensen’s The Rapture
• Chapter 4 Identity, Ethical Agency, and Radical Posterity: Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods and Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army
• Chapter 5 Science, Utopianism, and Ecocentric Posterity: Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Science in the Capital’ and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour
• Conclusion: The Sense of No Ending
• Works Cited
• Index