Nash, J. C. (2020). Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality. Meridians (Middletown, Conn.), 19(S1), 439–462. https://doi.org/10.1215/15366936-8566089

• This piece talks about love in relation to black feminism, a theme that is also dominant in Parable of the Sower. According to Nash, Black feminist love-politics has two parts that make it special. Firstly, it has a new idea about what the public sphere should be like. Secondly, it thinks about the future in a new way. It’s not like other political ideas and shows that there are different ways to think about things. Black feminism believes in love and love is important to create a good society. It takes love in a novel direction that I think I can use to expand my argument and also raise further discussion about romance.

Parrinder, Patrick. “Science Fiction as Romance.” Science Fiction, Routledge, 2003, pp. 68–87, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315015965-11.

• This piece talks about how despite the romance components of science fiction, it does not fall into the romance category. Parrinder compares the formulas and functions of realism and romance in science fiction. He argues that science fiction, when written as a deliberate romance, often prioritizes reader satisfaction over creating a believable world. Although science fiction falls under popular literature, its most distinctive forms have been created by authors who avoid taking shortcuts to appeal to the masses. Though I agree with some of the points he makes, I also wanted to show the opposing side of the discussion of romance in science fiction (cli-fi) in my essay and use it to further my argument.

Shu-Ching Chen. “Fear and Love in the Tide Country: Affect, Environment, and Encounters in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Concentric:Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2018, pp. 081–114, https://doi.org/10.6240/concentric.lit.201809_44(2).0004.

• This piece talks about love in the Hungry Tide. It defines love as feeling very strong emotions for people, places, objects, and things. Chen talks about the love relationship between Fokir and the environment, Piya and the environment and the relationship between Fokir and Piya. Chen also talks about how fear and love trigger the characters actions towards each other and their environment. This one of the few articles in my archive that discusses love in one of my close readings, the Hungry Tide. I plan on building my argument on the role of romance/love in Hungry Tide mostly from this article.

Taylor, Jesse Oak. “The Novel after Nature, Nature after the Novel: Richard Jefferies’s Anthropocene Romance.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 50, no. 1, 2018, pp. 108–33, https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2018.0006.

• I plan on making this article my central and background article. This article discusses how the rejection of the novel in favor of romance provides an opportunity to reconsider the history of novels in light of the Anthropocene, and to think about its chances of survival in the new era that is coming up. Apart from discussing the role of romance in cli-fi, it also talks about how that can affect the public’s reaction to the Anthropocene which is an important part of my argument.

Walker, Lisa. “Polar Bears and Evil Scientists: Romance, Comedy and Climate Change.” The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 3, no. 3, 2014, pp. 363–74, https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc.3.3.363_1.

•  This article suggests that popular culture, such as fiction, can be a useful tool for communicating about climate change. In particular, the genre of romantic comedy may be suitable for connecting a global issue to its local effects and making the issue relevant to readers. This article hits most of the points I plan on making in my essay. It talks about the role of romance in cli-fi and outside cli-fi and how it impacts public response to climate change, it is the brain behind my essay.

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.

Ghosh, Amitav. Hungry Tide. HARPERCOLLINS Publishers, 2017. 

Lerner, Ben. 10:04: A Novel. Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. 

Lloyd, Vincent. “Post-Racial, Post-Apocalyptic Love: Octavia Butler as Political Theologian.” Political Theology: The Journal of Christian Socialism, vol. 17, no. 5, 2016, pp. 449–64, https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2016.1211296.

Parrinder, Patrick. “Science Fiction as Romance.” Science Fiction, Routledge, 2003, pp. 68–87, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315015965-11.

Shu-ching Chen. “Fear and Love in the Tide Country: Affect, Environment, and Encounters in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2018, pp. 081–114, https://doi.org/10.6240/concentric.lit.201809_44(2).0004.

Taylor, Jesse Oak. “The Novel after Nature, Nature after the Novel: Richard Jefferies’s Anthropocene Romance.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 50, no. 1, 2018, pp. 108–33, https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2018.0006.

Walker, Lisa. “Polar Bears and Evil Scientists: Romance, Comedy and Climate Change.” The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 3, no. 3, 2014, pp. 363–74, https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc.3.3.363_1.

I started my research by using the hunter library OneSearch to search for romance in Parable of the Sower, there were very few articles written about this topic. So, I expanded my search and decided to start with why authors included romance in cli-fi and searched for romance in cli-fi and found this article that talks about cli-fi as a form of romance. Then I went back to narrowing my research question to focus on the books we have read. Since I couldn’t find much about romance in the Parable of the Sower, I changed the keyword romance to love and found more articles, still less but manageable. I then moved on to find romance or love in The Hungry Tide, and compared to the Parable of the Sower, I was able to find more articles. I found nothing written about romance or love in 10:04 yet, so I plan on just discussing examples from the book. Overall, it was difficult to research, and I had to tweak my research question to make it much easier to find sources.

While reading the novel 10:04, I noticed that it shares several similarities with The Hungry Tide. Both books explore the concept of time and temporality, focusing on its unstable, mobile, and flexible nature. In The Hungry Tide, Nirmal takes Kanai back in time using his notebook to the Morichjhapi incident. Throughout the book, the narrative switches back and forth between the past and the present. A similar technique is used in 10:04, where the story frequently jumps between the past, present, and even the future. For instance, when Ben visits the hospital to donate his sperm, he questions whether he should be involved with his future child and spirals into a conversation he would have with his future child about the process behind their birth (10:04, pp. 92-94). In The Hungry Tide, when Piya sees Fokir’s towel, it triggers memories of her home and family. When Fokir is cooking on the boat, the smell reminds Piya of her mother’s cooking. I find this part interesting because Piya is far from home, taken back in time not just in her memories but also in her surroundings. “They were almost lost to her, those images of the past, and nowhere had she less expected to see them than on this boat.”(The Hungry Tide, p. 78,80). Piya and Kanai come from a metropolitan city and move into a surrounding such as Lusibari, which is from the past and lacks electricity and technology. For instance, when Kanai had to walk in the mud to get to Lusibari. The locals did not find it uncanny but, Kanai feels uncanny. He is the futuristic character at that moment. Again, similar in 10:04, Noor talks about how she finds out that her father wasn’t her biological father, “I had always thought of my skin was dark, because I took after him because I was Arab-American, and as I sat there looking at my hands… I could see my skin whitening”(104). Noor appeared to be fading away because something in her past had changed, and it was affecting her in the present. Similar to the movie Back to the Future, where the main character begins to disappear because his parents don’t get together. Noor’s situation is because the man she thought was her father wasn’t her biological father, and her parents never had the chance to conceive her together. 

The novels 10:04 and The Hungry Tide share similarities in their exploration of time and temporality. Both books frequently jump between the past, present, and future, and their characters are taken back in time through memories and surroundings. In both Ghosh and Lerner’s novels, the concept of time plays a significant role in character development and plot advancement. The authors employ various techniques to depict time, such as flashbacks and foreshadowing, which enrich the narrative and provide a deeper understanding of the characters’ motivations and actions. Through these methods, the audience gains insight into the characters’ past experiences and how they shape their present circumstances, creating a more immersive and engaging reading experience.

While writing this post, I was reminded of Clausen’s literary analysis and criticism of Parable of the Sower. The novels emphasize the idea that the past can have a significant impact on the present and future. I believe that this theme is used to convey the message that climate change is the outcome of past actions that are affecting the present, and if not addressed, will continue to impact the future. Clausen also highlights the significance of understanding the past to comprehend science fiction and cli-fi as it provides an opportunity for recovering a usable past. Despite being set in the present, the novels delve into history and politics, which emphasizes the fact that the past’s influence on the future is undeniable.

How do the authors (Butler, Ghosh, Lerner) use the romantic elements in their novels to drive the plot forward and promote awareness and activism against climate change? How would the absence of romance in the novels impact its message?

The first two chapters of the book 10:04 were intriguing and challenging to read. The author, Ben Lerner, plays with the concept of time throughout the story. In the first section of the book, Lerner describes how the book itself came to fruition and shares a bit about his own life. We are also able to conclude that the book is autofiction. Similar to autobiography, the author is writing fiction about himself. We see methodology pointing to metafiction and modernism. One of the first instances I noticed the manipulation of time is when Lerner, a 33-year-old man, has to visit a pediatrician to diagnose his condition, Marfan, diagnosed in early childhood. Here, Lerner portrays himself as a future entity in a past reality. As if he has traveled back in time to his childhood but still as an adult.

While reading this book, I couldn’t help but wonder about the author’s choice of writing fiction revolving around the concept of time’s flexibility. It seems that the author drew inspiration from both the movie “Back to the Future” and the painting of Joan of Arc. In the painting, Joan’s hand is fading away as she reaches out to the angels, and the author points out that the presence of the future is causing her hand to fade. She is being pulled into the future (9). Similar to the time-traveling in “Back to the Future”, where the character fades away due to the absence of the future. The book delves into the intricacies of time and how it can be manipulated in fiction, and overall, it provides an intriguing exploration of this concept.

Additionally, it seems the author was inspired by the movie “The Clock” which he watched with his best friend. In the book, he refers to the movie as a clock, where thousands of scenes from movies, and a few from TV, are edited together to show a twenty-four-hour montage in real time. Each scene includes a shot of a timepiece or a reference to time in the dialogue, and time is synchronized both within and outside of the film (52). Through this movie, he discovered how people see time in general, which prompted him to write a fiction experimenting with that generality. He wanted to show that time is not just day, afternoon, and night but also the past, present, and future. He argues that even though the time in the movie and outside the movie are synchronized, “they were nevertheless minutes from different worlds”(54). The movie explores how different culture’s view and conceptualize time, discussing how these views influence social norms, traditions, and lifestyles. Additionally, it also dives into how globalization and technological advancements have affected the way people perceive and experience time.

In our class, we delved deeper into Nixon’s viewpoint on the complex relationship between the passage of time and the concept of slow violence. Nixon argued that slow violence is often difficult to recognize and acknowledge because it unfolds gradually over an extended period. This gradual unfolding of violence leads to a sense of normalcy, which makes it challenging to identify and respond to the situation urgently. Furthermore, Nixon emphasized the impact of globalization and technological advancements on the perception of slow violence. The globalized world has made it difficult to track and monitor the effects of slow violence across different regions and communities. Advancements in technology and social media have led to shorter attention spans, hindering our ability to comprehend slow violence severity.