Climate-fiction and future imaginaries (Research Team Università Milano-Bicocca)

The research team at Milano Bicocca University will focus on an emerging literary genre that, through imaginative storytelling, aims to address the implications and social consequences of the environmental crisis: Climate Fiction.

Descrizione

The research team will engage in three distinct phases of empirical analysis. Each will shed light on literary imaginaries – their social origins, inherent characteristics, and potential impacts within and beyond this specific field of cultural production.
Firstly, the team will reconstruct the cultural history of Climate Fiction in Italy, tracing its emergence and identifying important connections with other European and International contexts.

Secondly, a corpus of novels, their circulation and reception will be analysed. These texts will be examined to understand how language and ideas are used by different authors to convey messages about (imagined) future(s).

Thirdly, the team will investigate the circulation of these texts via digital platforms. Focusing on the main reading communities that have emerged (or will) around this genre, the analysis will delve into the mediatisation of the literary imaginaries.
By combining these approaches, the team aims to understand how Climate Fiction shapes emerging visions of the future, and potentially fosters civic and political participation, with the capacity to provide new responses against the challenges of environmental fatalism.