In Strange Times: Writing Weird Subjectivity in the Climate Crisis

This paper explores the capacities of Weird fiction, a permutation of the Gothic and speculative genres, as a means of articulation, response and reflection in the midst of the global climate crisis. Following Amitav Ghosh's assertion that the realist novel is not only limited in its capacity to engage the realities of ecological crises and the Anthropocene-but in fact often also functions to obscure those realities-I contend that the topos of Weird writing is uniquely well-suited for reckoning with them. This is in part because of Weird fiction's "close and profoundly uncomfortable' relationship to realist writing (Freeman), which prevents weird narratives from being easily dismissible as pure fantasy or speculation, as well as the 'enweirding' potential of the genre. I speak to the latter idea as both a critical reader and writer of the genre, and consider how my own creative practice has brought about a distinct, embodied engagement with the climate crisis and the more-than-human world.