Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-pwrkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-20T15:39:37.495Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 13 - American Modernisms and Climatology

from Part II - American Literary Climates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2021

Michael Boyden
Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
Get access

Summary

This chapter offers a critical analysis of the relationship between postmodernism and the environment, in particular the climate and climatic change. It outlines an alternative understanding of postmodernism and the literature of the period that resists normative assumptions regarding culture eclipsing nature during this postmodern period. Reading across canonical postmodern texts, genre fiction, and social movements literature, it identifies within this body of work a persistent preoccupation with resource scarcity, pollution, environmental degradation, and, in particular, anthropogenic climate change. Arguing that this tendency with postmodernism necessitates a rethinking of the archives of climate literature, this chapter argues that the period designation "postmodern" names a transition point in how climate is imagined, a period within which we can identify the emergence of an understanding of the global climate that is focused increasingly on environmental threats, their predictive modeling, and the cumulative effects of industrial and nuclear civilization.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×