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(Eco)Anxiety in Nuclear Holocaust Fiction and Climate Fiction: Doomsday Clock Narratives demonstrates that disaster fiction- nuclear holocaust and climate change alike- allows us to unearth and anatomise contemporary psychodynamics and enables us to identify pretraumatic stress as the common denominator of seemingly unrelated types of texts. These Doomsday Clock Narratives argue that earth's demise is soon and certain. They are set after some catastrophe and depict people waiting for an even worse catastrophe to come. References to geology are particularly important- in descriptions of the landscape, the emphasis falls on waste and industrial bric- a- brac, which is seen through the eyes of a future, posthuman archaeologist. Their protagonists have the uncanny feeling that the countdown has already started, and they are coping with both traumatic memories and pretraumatic stress. Readings of novels by Walter M. Miller, Nevil Shute, John Christopher, J. G. Ballard, George Turner, Maggie Gee, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ruth Ozeki, and Yoko Tawada demonstrate that the authors are both indebted to a century- old tradition and inventively looking for new ways of expressing the pretraumatic stress syndrome common in contemporary society. This book is written for an academic audience (postgraduates, researchers, and academics) specialising in British Literature, American Literature, and Science Fiction Studies.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
List of contents
INTRODUCTION: Doomsday Clock Narratives
Chapter I Anticipating Disasters: Anxieties and Traumas
- Eco-Anxiety and Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome
- Pre-Traumatic Stress: the Psychoanalytical Perspective
Chapter II Writing about Disasters: Metaphors and Parables
- Geological Metaphors
- Parables of Nature and Symbolic Timepieces
Chapter III Disaster Fantasies: Nuclear Holocaust Fiction and Climate Fiction
- Disaster Story Tradition
- Nuclear Holocaust Fiction
- Climate Fiction
Chapter IV 'Maybe it's a period of grace': Mid-Twentieth-Century Nuclear Holocaust Fiction in the Hands of Nevil Shute and Walter M. Miller
- Nevil Shute
On the Beach- Walter M. Miller
A Canticle for LeibowitzChapter V 'Imposing fantasies on the changing landscape:' the Visions of John Christopher, J.G. Ballard and George Turner
- John Christopher
The World in Winter- J.G. Ballard
The Drought - George Turner
The Sea and SummerChapter VI 'I wonder how much longer we have:' Recent Climate Fiction from the Pens of Maggie Gee, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ruth Ozeki and Yoko Tawada
- Maggie Gee
The Ice People- Paolo Bacigalupi
The Windup Girl- Ruth Ozeki's
A Tale for the Time Being- Yoko Tawada
The Last Children of TokyoCONCLUSION: Reading Climate Anxiety Through the Lens of a Nuclear Holocaust
- The Uses of Doomsday Clock Narratives
- Fallout and Flood
-"We," the Readers of Doomsday Clock Narratives
About the author
Dominika Oramus is a full professor at the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw and holder of a PhD in literature studies (1999, University of Warsaw) and of a postdoctoral degree in liberal arts (2008, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Modern Languages). Her books include
Grave New World: The Decline of the West in the Fiction of J. G. Ballard (Terminal Press, 2015).
Summary
(Eco)Anxiety in Nuclear Holocaust Fiction and Climate Fiction demonstrates that disaster fiction—nuclear holocaust and climate change alike—allows us to unearth and anatomize contemporary psychodynamics, and enables us to identify pre-traumatic stress as the common denominator of seemingly unrelated types of texts.
