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Anthropocene Fantasy and Infrastructures of Exploitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2024

Siobhan Maria Carroll Open the ORCID record for Siobhan Maria Carroll [Opens in a new window]  and
Edward Larkin Open the ORCID record for Edward Larkin [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

This essay traces the emergence of Anthropocene fantasy through an analysis of three multivolume series—George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings, and N. K. Jemisin's The Broken Earth. Each of these series repurposes the conventions of epic fantasy to analyze the ideological underpinnings of anthropogenic crisis. Among the most important tropes revised are fantasy infrastructures, which, in Anthropocene fantasy, frequently manifest a problematic division between the human and the nonhuman. Consequently, characters’ responses to these infrastructures often reflect these novels’ ecological politics. The surrender of agency associated with the abandonment of ancient infrastructures further indicates Anthropocene fantasy's interest in reimagining the individualistic mode of human agency that drives so many novel plotlines, fantasy and realist alike. Anthropocene fantasy's revision of its own problematic genre infrastructures thus has implications not only for the epic fantasy but for the novel form more broadly.

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Type
Essay
Information
PMLA , Volume 139 , Issue 2 , March 2024 , pp. 238 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Modern Language Association of America

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