Revisiting Ecocriticism and “Cli-Fi”: Reading Climate Change through Literature

Abstract

Literature, time and again, penetrates and reflects on the societal issues in terms of culture, politics, economy, philosophy, spirituality, human psyche and unanticipated changes in the ecology. So also, its paradigm shifts on climate issues that effect on human and natural phenomenon. Climate change is no longer a scientific or policy concern, it has become a profound cultural and imaginative challenge. This paper explores the emergence of “climate literature” as a significant area within environmental humanities. It focuses on the shift from early ecocritical writing towards contemporary “cli-fi” (climate fiction) (Johns-Putra, 2016; Slovic, 2014). Drawing on key theoretical interventions and selected literary examples, the paper delves into how literature represents the fierceness of climate change, interrogates human-nature-relationships, reimagines responsibility and hopes in the Anthropocene (Bould, 2021; Ghosh, 2016). The paper further highlights on different dimensions of climate impact on human-nature relationships, firstly, an overview of climate crisis as understood by contemporary science, secondly, the evolution of ecocriticism and the specific turn to climate change, thirdly, the rise of cli-fi as a literary mode and its thematic concerns and lastly, the pedagogical implications of teaching climate literature in the Indian classroom. The paper argues that climate literature helps readers to “feel” climate change as lived experience rather than distant abstraction, and thus functions as a vital cultural response to a global emergency (Slovic, 2014).