This module will explore “cli-fi” literature in Spanish, as a genre able to raise awareness of climate change and its consequences on mankind and the anthropocene. Students will investigate how literary techniques and strategies can trigger empathetic and ethical responses, and challenge attitudes of denial and despair towards the impact of global warming and our implication with its causes and consequences. Short stories written in Spanish across the world (Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Spain) will be the primary material for students to explore the ability of speculative fiction to imagine the future and rethink the existential paradigms that lay behind the thermo industrial civilisation we currently inhabit.

Student feedback

"I really enjoyed taking this module, especially to improve my Spanish while engaging with a topic like climate change. It was also interesting to get into climate fiction from the perspective of those who suffer the most from its consequences."

Assessment

80% essay (3,000 words)

20% presentation (10 min video - formats to be discussed in class)

Teaching Mode: face to face 2 hours lecture/ seminar

Primary Reading

In this module we will read a selection of short stories in Spanish taken from the following collections:

• Estío, Once Relatos de ficción climática, Episkaia, Madrid, 2018
• El Futuro es Bosque: Antología de Ficción Climática, ed. Giny Valris, apachelibros, Pluma Futura, 2018
• Michael Chanan, Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes (70 minutes, UK, 2019)
• José Rabelo, 2063 y otras distopías, Isla Negra, San Juan de Puerto Rico, 2018
• Erik Mota, Habana Underguater, La Habana: Atom Press, 2010
• Mariana Enríquez, Chicos que vuelven. Córdoba: Eduvim, 2012
• Andrea Chapela, Ansibles, perfiladores y otras máquinas de ingenio. Ciudad de México: Almadía, 2020
• Mónica Ojeda, Chamanes eléctricos en la fiesta del sol. Ciudad de México: Random House, 2024