A Sociological Perspective on the Representation of Science in Climate Change Novels

• Authors: Hempel, Fabian

Abstracts

EN

According to a comprehensive scientific consensus, the environmental impact of modern societies is a significant cause for the current experienced effects of global warming. In addition to science’s function as a diagnostic instance of the Anthropocene, it occupies at least two additional roles in the story of humaninduced climate change. Modern science tries to act as a therapist as it proposes numerous actions that need to be taken when tackling the risks, causes, and consequences of climate change. Moreover, the institution of science is a (co-) producer of anthropogenic risks due to the intentional and unintentional utilization of scientific knowledge and science-based technologies for societal purposes. Therefore, this contribution asks from a sociological point of view how representations of science in exemplary climate change novels, a body of contemporary literature that deals with human-induced global warming and its societal implications, depict this multi-layered embedding of science as a producer, diagnostician, and therapist of societal risks in the story of humancaused climate change.

Keywords

EN

sociology of climate change; sociology of literature; modernity; climate fiction; Anthropocene

• Publisher: Akademia Techniczno-Humanistyczna w Bielsku-Białej, Instytut Teologiczny im. Jana Kantego w Bielsku-Białej, Książnica Beskidzka
• Journal: Świat i Słowo
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 36(1)
• Pages: 99-112

Dates

published

2021-03-11

Contributors

author

Hempel, Fabian