Climate Realism, Eco-dystopia and Aesthetic of Resilience in Maja Lunde's The End of the Ocean and Diane Cook's The New Wilderness

Ismail, Faten Ahmed Ramadan

doi:10.21608/qarts.2023.202361.1657

Climate Realism, Eco-dystopia and Aesthetic of Resilience in Maja Lunde's The End of the Ocean and Diane Cook's The New Wilderness

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faten Ahmed Ramadan Ismail

Associate Professor of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts, Fayoum University

10.21608/qarts.2023.202361.1657

Abstract

The ecological understanding of Climate Change calls forth the interdisiplinarity of such crisis and the intervention of diverse concepts to disclose the realities of Climate Change as a global calamity that needs unconventional approaches to explore. Climate Realism is a term coined by Lynn Badia et al. in their book: Climate Realism: The Aesthetics of Weather and Atmosphere in the Anthropocene. The book penetrates the challenges of Climate Change representation and the aesthetics of Climate Change adaptation which can be considered the aesthetics of resilience amidst Climate disasters. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the present research tackles Climate Change catastrophe and the aesthetics of resilience in two eco-dystopian novels; namely, Maja Lunde's The End of the Ocean (2020) and Diane Cook's The New Wilderness (2020). Both novels depict horrific landscapes created by extreme Climate Changes. The two selected novels are Climate Fiction (cli-fi) depicting dystopian settings created by Climate disasters. The two novels convey a powerful message of the significance of resilience amidst hazardous Climate Changes.

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