A Planet in Hospice

“With its audacious analysis of the environmental and climate crises, meticulous meditation on environmental justice, and enlightening exegesis on possibility amid catastrophe, A Planet in Hospice provides a much-needed intervention in ecocriticism and the environmental humanities.” —Cajetan Iheka, author of African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics

“A Planet in Hospice pushes past critiques of ecofiction and climate fiction to identify ways these narratives offer pathways for confronting a planet in crisis. Cardon’s connections between the overlapping critical concepts of eco-grief, terror management theory, and storytelling are innovative and compelling.” —Bryan Yazell, author of The American Vagrant in Literature: Race, Work and Welfare

“Cardon’s breadth of scholarship is impressive, ranging from empirical studies to literary theory to psychology to philosophy, and inclusive of Indigenous, queer, Black, and activist works. A Planet in Hospice is a refreshing take on ecofiction.” —Emily Midkiff, author of Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children

Advances new theories of “existential ecofiction” and how its authors both confront death and foster hope in their visions of a path forward through the global climate crisis.

How do we continue to love and care for a planet it’s too late to save? In A Planet in Hospice, Lauren S. Cardon analyzes works of “existential ecofiction” that invite us to reflect on our mortality and the many ways that people are already affected by disaster, while also encouraging hope and connection. These texts from authors such as N. K. Jemisin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Darcie Little Badger, Rivers Solomon, Richard Powers, and Margaret Atwood are characterized by themes of ecological crisis, planetary demise, and human extinction, and they center environmental justice and human oppression. Cardon argues that, by invoking the end of the world, these writers directly engage with death anxiety and consequently intervene in current theories of existential psychology and intersectional ecocriticism. They highlight the inextricability of environmental care and social justice and offer visions of a path forward through the global climate crisis humans now face.

Lauren S. Cardon is Professor of English at the University of Alabama. She has written four monographs in American literary studies and is coauthor (with Anne-Marie Womack) of Inclusive College Classrooms: Teaching Methods for Diverse Learners. She researches cultural studies approaches to US literature and identity as well as critical pedagogy.

Contents

Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1 The Nature of Apocalypse
Chapter 2 Complacency and the Hero Complex
Chapter 3 Resource Wars and Refugees
Chapter 4 Death Denial and Ecological Grief
Chapter 5 Accepting and Shaping Our Future
Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Works Cited
Index