The Wagon’s Got All We Need: Developing an optimistic speculative theory from the fiction of Ernest Callenbach, Becky Chambers, and Emily St. John Mandel

Abstract

Amidst the climate crisis, hopeful narratives are as sparse as they are necessary, which is problematic; we cannot build a future that we cannot even imagine. This thesis develops a nuanced, pragmatic literary framework, called optimistic speculative theory, that rejects “climate doomism,” resists oversimplification, and instead imagines and aims to create a hopeful future. This framework draws upon ecocriticism, queer utopian theory, and solarpunk (an internet aesthetic and subculture). The value and possible applications of optimistic speculative theory are examined through analyses of three literary imaginings of the future: Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975), Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot duology (2021, 2022), and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014). Each of these works is set in a future that is ultimately hopeful, be the setting utopian or post-apocalyptic. By focusing on the construction of these three narratives, this thesis complicates the utopia/dystopia binary, ultimately arguing for an expanded definition of optimistic environmental literature.