Media
Andrew Stanton, WALL·E (FortyFour Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, 2008). (Available through NYU Stream)
Douglas Trumbull, Silent Running (Universal Pictures, Trumbull/Gruskoff Productions, 1972). (Available through NYU Stream)
Geek of the Week
- Annie
- “Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?” by Joshua Rothman – New Yorker Article on Kim Stanley Robinson and “The Ministry of the Future”? (PDF)
- “Mono No Aware” by Ken Liu
- Text with Kanji character: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mono-no-aware/
- Here is the audio version read by Lavar Burton (a version I especially recommend): https://www.stitcher.com/show/levar-burton-reads/episode/live-in-boston-mono-no-aware-by-ken-liu-200144235
- Xiaoyu
- Larry Niven, “Inconstant Moon” in Inconstant Moon (London : Sphere, 1974). (Or at the Internet Archive)
- Roland Emmerich, 2012, (Columbia Pictures, Centropolis Entertainment, Farewell Productions, 2009). Watch from min. 126 to the end (Available through NYU Stream)
Theory and Commentary
Andrew Milner, et al. 2015. Ice, Fire, and Flood: Science Fiction and the Anthropocene. Thesis Eleven 13(1): 12-27.4
Selection from Amitav Ghosh, selection from The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, (Chicago ; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016).
Lewis Gordon, “Silent Running: The Sci-Fi That Predicted Modern Crises,” BBC, February 15, 2021.
Shelley Streeby, “Introduction” and “3. Climate Change as a World Problem. Shaping Change in the Wake of Disaster” in Imagining the Future of Climate Change: World-Making through Science Fiction and Activism, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2017).
1. Can all cli-fi works be considered SF works?
2. How do cli-fi works make audiences connect the consequences of climate change that happened in the fictional world with those in the real world?
3. Considering that climate change is a serious topic requiring scientific research and practical solutions, is cli-fi powerful enough to make a difference? I agree that “creative artists and humanities academics are no doubt inclined to overestimate the likely effects of the arts (Milner et al., 2015).”
1. What is the importance of national identities when all of the people are contained within the same ship, no longer divided by borders?
2. How does the existence of large cities fit alongside the concept of Indigenous concepts of human’s relationship to land?
3. How do the humans of Wall-E plan on dealing with the sandstorms ravaging earth?
1. Why are the issues of climate change never addressed head-on in climate-fiction? Why are we still afraid to show what really caused and causes continuous damage to our climate?
2. Are there any secret programs/organizations/ships being built in case of climate disaster? If yes, should the people of Earth know about these plans?
3. What is more important, saving humans or saving plants/other animals?
1) Have we reached a point in our existence where the only way to deal with the real fear of our climate crisis, is through cli-fi, and works like it, as a way to engage with the critical problems that we face, but without having to deal with it in our “real” lives?
2) There is a sense of hope in Wall-E and in the end of 2012, the humans are saved and have the ability to start over, but what actually gives them the right to “start over,” and what is the actual reality they would be given a chance. What would cli-fi films be doing if they didn’t imply hope at all?
3) Is cli-fi helping viewers begin to interact with the climate crisis in new ways?
1. How is Wall-e’s job stacking trash into skyscrapers a commentary about the worker economy?
2. Hiroto’s father says, that survival depends on the ability to consider collective needs and to care about others; “the web of relationships in which we’re enmeshed”. How does this apply to climate narratives as well as interpersonal relationships?
3. How has the theme of loss aboard the Hopeful (ship), present a crisis for humanity in Ken Liu’s story?
1. Why do cli-fi always lay their emphasis of narratives on botany and plants?
2. Silent Running shows a moral dilemma that the hero killed his fellow to protect his plants. Does this plot in some way challenge human-centralism? (as it no longer insists on the human hero’s survival in the cosmic future but lets mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony)
3. How to understand the gender normative in Wall-E? For example, Wall-E is a boy character chasing after EVE as a girl.
1. In our narrative, a dose of pessimism is always required to generate drama. Does this have a bad influence in our confidence to solve problems before they arise? Is story telling a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents us from follow the best possible path?
2. If everyone is a hero in Ken Liu’s story, then why is the self sacrifing man still the protagonist?
3. Can we curb global warming with more of the same technology that brought us here in the first place? Or could we learn to improve technology, optimize it, to make our impact less harmful? Or is technological degrowth necessary?
1. What socio-economic role does the luxury storefronts (Tiffany’s, Gucci) play in Inconstant Moon? What purpose does this hold in the narrative?
2. In a dystopian CliFi narrative- who survives and why?
3. How does the absence of dialogue in the beginning scenes of Wall-E set the tone for the film?
1. What can WALL-E teach us about bringing climate change conversations to audiences of young children?
2. The ark scene in 2012 is reminiscent of biblical folklore. Can religious text folklore be considered science fiction?
3. What does Cli-Fi look like after 7 years? Is it sci-fi or documentary at that point?