Researcher:  Misty Matthews-Roper

Project Description:  In the last decade, climate fiction – cli-fi for short – has addressed anthropogenic climate change stirring scholarly interest in the capacity of cli-fi to impact reader behaviour and motivate action on climate change. Scholarship on cli-fi owes much to ecocriticism, a sub-field of literary studies which seeks to understand how different media represent, express, and influence human perspectives on nature. These scholars argue that cli-fi provides a way to both think and feel our way through climate change. Interestingly, while ecocritics talk a lot about cli-fi, they have had few discussions with cli-fi’s general readership.

In an effort to fill this gap, several scholars have turned to empirical ecocriticism, which is defined by its use of both communication and literary studies methodologies. In principle, empirical ecocriticism is similar to studies of reception - prioritizing the audience’s reaction to a text over the text itself. In practice, empirical ecocriticism uncovers these reactions with methods borrowed from communications studies (such as focus groups, interviews, surveys). These are particularly apt for the study of cli-fi as many ecocritics claim that these novels are capable of having an effect on a reader’s mind. Empirical ecocriticism is also response to recent cognitive narratology research, which sees reading as a process of immersion. Some cognitive narratologists argue that this immersion allows readers to emotionally identify with characters and places in the story. Importantly, empirical ecocriticism is not simply a social science or communication studies approach to studying literature. It differs from these disciplines in that it seeks not only to gather data from audiences, but also to combine this with textual analysis and other ecocritical concerns (such as questions of narrative voice, genre, style).

The first forays into empirically studying cli-fi readers have revealed several mixed conclusions about the impact of reading cli-fi. Significantly, the results suggest that reading any one cli-fi will not lead to changes in behaviour; however, this doesn’t discount cli-fi’s significance. For one, much of this research has been conducted through surveys, missing the social aspect of reading.

Readers don’t always read in isolation and many readers discuss what they read with others. These discussions could be where the work of cli-fi occurs. Aiming to develop our understanding of this social aspect of reading, Misty’s doctoral research will focus on observing a book club as they read four cli-fi novels (Weather (2020) by Jenny Offill; Blaze Island (2020) by Catherine Bush; Blackfish City (2018) by Sam J. Miller; The Marrow Thieves (2017) by Cherie Dimaline). Some of the questions guiding her research are: How does a group of readers discuss each novel, what themes are mentioned? Each author wrote their novels with the intention of inspiring their readers to have hope for the future. Will the readers in this group feel inspired? How do these novels provide space for these readers to reflect on more than just the climate change facts and figures, as some ecocritics claim? Observing readers as they interpret and discuss these novels will provide valuable insight into the cultural work of cli-fi.