How do we continue to love and care for a planet it’s too late to save? In A Planet in Hospice, Lauren S. Cardon analyzes works of “existential ecofiction” that invite us to reflect on our mortality and the many ways that people are already affected by disaster, while also encouraging hope and connection. These texts from authors such as N. K. Jemisin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Darcie Little Badger, Rivers Solomon, Richard Powers, and Margaret Atwood are characterized by themes of ecological crisis, planetary demise, and human extinction, and they center environmental justice and human oppression. Cardon argues that, by invoking the end of the world, these writers directly engage with death anxiety and consequently intervene in current theories of existential psychology and intersectional ecocriticism. They highlight the inextricability of environmental care and social justice and offer visions of a path forward through the global climate crisis humans now face.
Lauren Cardon, University of Alabama
Lauren S. Cardon is a Professor of English at the University of Alabama, with a PhD from Tulane University. Her new monograph, Planet in Hospice: Environmental Justice in Existential Ecofiction, is forthcoming with OSU Press. She has authored three other academic monographs on American literature, most recently Fashioning Character: Style, Performance, and Identity in Contemporary American Literature (UVA Press, 2021). Having taught at the college level for over 20 years, Dr. Cardon also specializes in inclusive pedagogy and co-authored the book Inclusive College Classrooms: Teaching Methods for Diverse Learners, published by Routledge (2022). She currently serves as her department’s Director of Graduate Studies.
