EcoSF | The Ecology of Italian Science Fiction

Summary
EcoSF investigates the prominence and distinctive representation of ecological issues in Italian science fiction (1952-2019). The project, which provides one of the very first extensive academic studies dedicated to this genre in Italy, examines the debate surrounding its cultural status and traces its evolution in relation to Italian history and culture.
An ecocritical perspective is adopted, interrogating the relationship between literary imagination and the environment. Through such approach, EcoSF shows how literature is important to generate awareness of ecological issues and explore literary responses to the current ecological crisis. The cognitive estrangement raised by the imaginative effort of science fiction is central to the necessary re-thinking of current cultural and epistemological paradigms based on anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, and ecophobia. Furthermore, by interrogating our current relationship with the environment, and imagining known environments after ecological catastrophes, science fiction can provide a tool to investigate our cultural heritage.
Combining the innovative critical tools of ecocriticism and the speculative imagination of science fiction, EcoSF offers an alternative genealogy of our understanding of the environment outside an ecophobic perspective. The dissemination of the research will adapt dystopian imagination to the case of Venice, thus employing the theoretical categories of the project to reflect on local communities and landscapes.
Unfold all
/
Fold all
More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/890656
Start date: 01-10-2020
End date: 30-09-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 251 002,56 Euro - 251 002,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

EcoSF investigates the prominence and distinctive representation of ecological issues in Italian science fiction (1952-2019). The project, which provides one of the very first extensive academic studies dedicated to this genre in Italy, examines the debate surrounding its cultural status and traces its evolution in relation to Italian history and culture.
An ecocritical perspective is adopted, interrogating the relationship between literary imagination and the environment. Through such approach, EcoSF shows how literature is important to generate awareness of ecological issues and explore literary responses to the current ecological crisis. The cognitive estrangement raised by the imaginative effort of science fiction is central to the necessary re-thinking of current cultural and epistemological paradigms based on anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, and ecophobia. Furthermore, by interrogating our current relationship with the environment, and imagining known environments after ecological catastrophes, science fiction can provide a tool to investigate our cultural heritage.
Combining the innovative critical tools of ecocriticism and the speculative imagination of science fiction, EcoSF offers an alternative genealogy of our understanding of the environment outside an ecophobic perspective. The dissemination of the research will adapt dystopian imagination to the case of Venice, thus employing the theoretical categories of the project to reflect on local communities and landscapes.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2019

Update Date

28-04-2024
Images
No images available.
Geographical location(s)
Structured mapping
Unfold all
/
Fold all
Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
MSCA-IF-2019