Concept Note

An important literary genre in recent years, Climate fiction (cli-fi) offers imaginative reconstructions, representations and explorations of climate change and its societal and environmental impacts. However, as the climate crisis grows more urgent, the genre faces criticism for its representational limitations. Often stereotyped as catastrophic and dystopian narratives, cli-fi tends to frame environmental disasters as distant, futuristic phenomena, overlooking their current manifestations, particularly in the Global South. Moreover, it has been critiqued for its anthropocentric focus, often centering on a white, Western human experience, excluding the variety of humans as well as the entanglement of humans with non-humans. This narrow focus neglects the diverse ways in which various human communities experience and respond to climate change and also neglect the complex interconnectedness of humans and non-human entities. Moreover, climate fiction’s reliance on the idea of future technology neglects the rich repository of knowledge found in indigenous epistemologies, which may offer alternative approaches to addressing environmental challenges. This seminar seeks to address these gaps by engaging with the Anthropocene across its past, present, and future dimensions. It aims to challenge dominant conceptions of climate change by fostering a sense of continuity and urgency and exploring how Indian literature addresses these issues within the cli-fi genre. The seminar emphasises the importance of diverse knowledge systems and cultural perspectives, advocating for collaborative approaches to better understand and address climate change.

In “Histories,” the second section of The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh develops a “genealogy of the carbon economy” that finds resonance in theories of postcolonialism, environmental justice, and modernity. Disagreeing with Naomi Klein, Ghosh argues that it is not capitalism per se but rather the unequal operations of empire that have driven global dysfunction. Industrialization in the 19th century ultimately became a “process of technological diffusion that radiates outwards from the West” (GD 126). Hence carbon emissions were “closely co-related to power in all its aspects” which is a “major, although unacknowledged, factor in the politics of contemporary global warming” (GD 146). Although Asian countries have been the biggest contributors to recent climate changes due to the boom in industrialization, Ghosh reverses the scale in his crisp observation that “some of the key technologies of the carbon economy were first adopted in England, the world’s leading colonial power” (GD 148). Examining the congruence between the logics of capitalism and the physical properties of fossil energy and its impact on climate change, Timothy Mitchell adroitly predicts that “the political machinery that emerged to govern the age of fossil fuels, partly as a product of those forms of energy, may be incapable of addressing the events that will end it” (7). The seminar aims to examine how climate change in the form of global warming and environmental degradation escalates with the neocolonial exploitation of the earth’s natural resources in impoverished regions of the global south for the benefit of ever-expanding industrial, capitalist societies. Simon During delineates that subaltern crises have not only deepened, but heightened in the present age of neo-liberalism, as “the politics of subalternity were largely absorbed into the machinery of emergent neo-liberal state capitalism” (57), thereby increasing the vulnerability of the working class and labourers across the world and converting them into precariats, or denizens of the precarious society. While colonial episteme systematically and poignantly justified Eurocentric human and civilizational progress and delegitimated and obliterated non-Western indigenous forms of traditional knowledge, the seminar seeks to examine how Indian Literature has reinvigorated indigenous knowledge systems.

Abstracts for fifteen-minute presentations are sought on literary works within any literary genre that aims to contribute to the understanding of climate fiction and eco-aesthetics in Indian literature and culture. Abstracts should cover the following sub-themes and may stretch beyond to justify the theme and purpose of the seminar:

● Climate Fiction and Eco-aesthetics

● Ecohorror in Climate Fiction

● The Intersection of Gender and Climate Fiction

● Queer Ecology

● Climate Fiction and Masculinity

● Plant Studies

● Folk, Environment, and Ethnography

● Bioethics and Climate Fiction

● The Posthuman Condition and Anthropocene

● Ecojustice and Postcolonial Dynamics

● Ecofeminism and Climate Fiction

Timeline of the Seminar

Last date for submission of abstracts: 15th of January, 2025

Notification of the acceptance of the abstract: 18th of January, 2025

Last date for registration: 5th of February, 2025

Registration fees: 800 (INR) for Students, 1000 (INR) for Scholars, 2000 (INR) for Teachers

Seminar Dates: 12th and 13th of February, 2025

Submission Guidelines:

Send the abstract of your proposed paper in Times New Roman and 12 font.

Word Limit- 300 words

Give five keywords and a short bio-note of 50 words.

Please follow MLA 9th edition for formatting and citation.

Abstracts should be submitted via email to english2@nbu.ac.in

Please write ‘Sahitya Akademi Seminar’ as the subject of your email.