Course Schedule
Week 2 (1/21)
E. M. Forster, “The Machine Stops” (PDF)
- Angela Evancie, “So Hot Right Now: Has Climate Change Created A New Literary Genre?”
- Rodge Glass, “Global warning: the rise of ‘cli-fi’”
- Robert Macfarlane, “The burning question”
- Ian Sample, “Anthropocene: is this the new epoch of humans?”
Week 3 (1/28)
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
- H.G. Wells, from “The Extinction of Man: Some Speculative Suggestions” & “Popularizing Science” (PDF)
Week 4 (2/4)
Phillippe Squarzoni, Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science
- Chris Hayes, “The New Abolitionism”
Week 5 (2/11)
George R. Stewart, Earth Abides
- Rachel Carson, from_Silent Spring (PDF)
Week 6 (2/18)
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future
- Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security” (PDF)
Week 7 (2/25)
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
- Octavia Butler, “‘Devil Girl From Mars’”: Why I Write Science Fiction“
SPRING BREAK
Week 8 (3/11)
Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior
- The New York Times, “The Power of Climate Change Fiction”
Week 9 (3/18)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain (1-197)
- PD Smith, “Before the Flood”
Week 10 (3/25)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain (198-393)
Week 11 (4/1)
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Wind-up Girl
- Aarthi Vadde, “Megalopolis Now”
Week 12 (4/8)
In-class film, TBD via class vote (some candidates: The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla (2014), Interstellar, Noah, Snowpiercer, Into the Storm)
- Michael Svoboda, “A Review of Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi) Cinema … Past and Present” (PDF)
Week 13 (4/15)
Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
- Gerry Canavan, “Hope, But Not for Us: Ecological Science Fiction and the End of the World in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood” (PDF)
Week 14 (4/23)
Tobias Buckell, Hurricane Fever
- Nisi Shawl, “The Shock of the New Normal”
