Ecocriticism and the Rise of Climate Fiction (“Cli-Fi”)

Abstract

This research paper examines the intersection of ecocriticism and climate fiction (cli-fi), tracing the theoretical evolution of ecocritical thought and its application to a burgeoning literary genre that has emerged as a cultural response to anthropogenic climate change. The paper argues that cli-fi represents not merely a thematic subcategory of speculative fiction but a significant literary-cultural phenomenon that performs essential cognitive, affective, and ethical work in the Anthropocene. Through an analysis of the theoretical foundations of ecocriticism—from its first-wave nature-writing preoccupations through its second-wave environmental justice expansions to its third-wave posthumanist and intersectional developments—the paper demonstrates how cli-fi has become a crucial site for ecocritical inquiry. Drawing on Timothy Morton’s concept of hyperobjects, Rob Nixon’s notion of slow violence, and emerging frameworks of empirical ecocriticism, the study analyzes representative works including Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future to illustrate how climate fiction narrativizes the otherwise ungraspable scales of climate crisis. The paper concludes that cli-fi functions as a form of “cultural modelling” that shapes climate imaginaries and offers readers frameworks for apprehending, mourning, and responding to ecological collapse, while acknowledging the genre’s representational limitations and the ongoing debates within ecocritical scholarship regarding the efficacy of narrative in fostering climate action.