Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

From Page To Place: Speculative Fiction, Future Space-Making, And Community Formation In Theory And Practice, Victoria L. Haynes

Masters Theses

This thesis shows how Black and queer-authored Southern climate fiction can serve as a guide for constructing better futures. Established as two separate academic papers, the first chapter analyzes two climate fiction novels set in the U.S. Southern landscape: Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts and Tenea Johnson’s Smoketown. Through this analysis, I name three key commonalities between both narratives that I believe are critical to facilitating future change: creating community, envisioning resistance, and fostering empathy and accountability. My identification of these three themes and discussion of their articulations is grounded in the work of Black geographies and queer …