From Safe Havens to Monstrous Worlds: The 'Child' in Narratives of Environmental Collapse

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dc.contributor.advisorPaolantonio, Mario Di
dc.contributor.advisorAlsop, Steve
dc.creatorMaclear, Kyo Iona
dc.date.accessioned2018-11-21T13:47:46Z
dc.date.available2018-11-21T13:47:46Z
dc.date.copyright2018-07-31
dc.date.issued2018-11-21
dc.date.updated2018-11-21T13:47:46Z
dc.degree.disciplineEducation
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractChildren are widely used as emotive symbols of our shared ecological future, evoking concerns for the next generation as well as the philosophical stakes and challenges of politically addressing climate change. The 'child' as redeemer anchors the dream of transforming and healing the troubled world and functions as a beacon against the foreclosure of human history. My doctoral study examines the cultural ubiquity of the child redeemer figure in contemporary Western narratives of environmental collapse. Literature and film serve as objects for a theoretical investigation that is informed by post-colonial, critical post-humanist and ecocritical conceptions of childhood, nature and narrative. Following the work of other scholars of childhood and futurity (Kathryn Bond Stockton, Jack Halberstam, Mari Ruti, Jos Esteban Muoz, Claudia Castaeda), I ask how we, as adults, might respond to children in a manner that does not reproduce the old idea of childhood innocence nor allow the adults flight of fantasy into redemption or leave the 'child' to his/her own devices. Can the 'child' exceed his/her metonymic function? What are the possibilities of delaminating the climate change story from the imperatives of a redemptive and sentimental humanism? Specifically, my project addresses the fiction of universality, which continues to thrive in the hothouse of childrens culture and education. Moving from Clio Barnards feature film The Selfish Giant (2013) to Zacharias Kunuk/Ian Mauros documentary Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change (2010), each of the four chapters in this dissertation is concerned with dramatizing the limits of heroic environmental storytelling modes, which tend to emphasize the individual in isolation and thereby threaten the fragile, collective, slow labor of forging a common world and a post-carbon future. Heroic reifications and fairy-tale endings may offer consolation, I propose, but they are inadequate to address the social, structural, and ecological crises we currently, and unequally, face as nations and as a species. Shifting towards collective ways of storytelling climate change, I introduce visionary, intergenerational survival stories that give imaginative form to climate grief and resistance and address the lived and heterogeneous experiences of children in a climate-impacted world.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/35529
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectFilm studies
dc.subject.keywordsClimate change
dc.subject.keywordsClimate culture
dc.subject.keywordsEnvironmental humanities
dc.subject.keywordsEnvironmental politics
dc.subject.keywordsNarrative modes
dc.subject.keywordsReproductive futurism
dc.subject.keywordsThe child
dc.subject.keywordsSentimental humanism
dc.subject.keywordsEco-criticism
dc.subject.keywordsFilm studies
dc.subject.keywordsQueer theory
dc.subject.keywordsBlack studies
dc.subject.keywordsIndigenous resistance
dc.subject.keywordsAnthropocene
dc.subject.keywordsCare politics
dc.subject.keywordsCare ethics
dc.subject.keywordsCli-fi
dc.subject.keywordsNarrative
dc.subject.keywordsStorytelling
dc.subject.keywordsClimate justice
dc.subject.keywordsIntersectionality
dc.subject.keywordsSlow violence
dc.titleFrom Safe Havens to Monstrous Worlds: The 'Child' in Narratives of Environmental Collapse
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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