Narratives of Collapse and Renewal in 21st-Century Fiction explores contemporary novels that imagine worlds under pressure—by climate crisis, political instability, social fragmentation, ecological ruin, and personal loss—while also tracing the stubborn possibility of repair, community, and change. Drawing on fiction that moves between devastation and reconstruction, the course asks how writers represent collapse not only as an ending, but as a threshold where new forms of survival, solidarity, and imagination emerge.
The Student will read novels that confront the breakdown of institutions, environments, and inherited ways of life, paying close attention to how form itself changes under the strain of crisis. Through discussion and analytical writing, the course examines how 21st-century fiction turns ruins into questions: What remains when the familiar world fails, and what kinds of future can still be imagined from within its wreckage?
The Student will explore the following texts:
JUNE: Jeff Vandermeer - Area X:Southern Reach …
