Expanding circle of concern

#4089

A drama about a couple in Brooklyn, or a history about Mexico and indigenous people carrying traces of Aztec culture do not touch on the problems of climate and corporations. Imagine that all existing literature and history is placed into a circle from the center to the edge. The existing circle of writing is nearly full. But we want to know how to respond to the new drama of a failing civilization on a failing planet We want films and plays, novels and histories, that tell us about these stories, that are these stories. (We have some, especially in what gets called science fiction.¹ We need a n expanded circle where writers move into the space between the existing circumference and a new border circle of not yet imagined larger dimensions.

1. Amatov Ghosh writes eloquent stories and non-fiction analyses about the lack of a genre of Earth in crisis. The old assumptions of an unchanging earth persist. See for example Ghosh’s The Great Derangement and The Nutmeg’s Curse