2015 is shaping up to be ''The Year of Cli-Fi'' in academia, and not just in North America, but in Britain and Australia as well. Credit: Tulane Public Relations/cc by 2.0

By Dan Bloom
TAIPEI, Mar 10 2015 (IPS)

From Columbia University in New York to the University of Cambridge in Britain, college classrooms are picking up on the “cli-fi” genre of fiction, and cinema and academia is right behind them.

While authors are penning cli-fi novels — with movie scriptwriters creating cli-fi screenplays to try to sell to Hollywood — classrooms worldwide are now focusing attention of the rising genre of literature and cinema."Literary fiction has dreamed up many versions of the end of the world, but how is contemporary fiction dealing with the threat of climate change?" -- Prof. Jenny Bavidge

Jenny Bavidge at the University of Cambridge taught a class on cli-fi last summer at the Institute of Continuing Education there, and Darragh Martin is teaching a cli-fi class at Columbia University in Manhattan this summer, too.

Cli-fi is a catchy abbreviation for the genre of “climate fiction,” much in the same way that “sci-fi” is a nickname for “science fiction.” With news articles about the rise of cli-fi appearing in the New York Times and Time magazine last year, literature professors saw an opportune time to introduce cli-fi classes into the curriculum.

“Literary fiction has dreamed up many versions of the end of the world, but how is contemporary fiction dealing with the threat of climate change?” Bavidge asked students in her introduction to the class last summer. “This course will focus on works by contemporary authors, including Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan, and ask whether ‘cli-fi’ imagines solutions as well as ends.

“As people living through this particular historical moment, we may want to ask how far [cli-fi] novels contribute to efforts to better understand our relationship with the planet and its ecosystems,” she wrote

One of my mentors in the world of sci-fi literature is the novelist David Brin.

I once asked him about how climate change themes have been influencing sci-fi novels and movies, and he told me by email: “Global warming and flooding were important in my 1989 novel ‘Earth,’ but they were earlier featured in the film ‘Soylent Green’ based on Harry Harrison’s novel ‘Make Room, Make Room!’”

Six U.S. colleges have set up cli-fi classes this year, with both undergrad and graduate level courses involved. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This year, 2015, is shaping up to be ”The Year of Cli-Fi” in academia, and not just in North America, but in Britain and Australia as well.

Several non-English speaking countries are also looking at cli-fi and how it impacts their own literary circles, including Brazil, Spain, Germany and France.

While six universities and colleges in the United States have taken up the call and are part of the new trend in higher education in 2015, the genre is reaching out worldwide to writers (and readers) across the globe. Cli-fi is not an American or British genre; it has become a global genre.

The Chronicle of Higher Education newspaper in Washington, D.C., which covers academic issues in a variety of subject areas, has assigned a staff reporter to look into the rise of cli fi in the academy as well, according to sources.

In addition to Martin’s summer class at Columbia, which starts on May 27, professors at Temple University in Philadelphia, the University of Oregon, Holyoke Community College, the State University of New York in Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo) and The University of Delaware are currently teaching cli-fi classes this semester, with a total of about 200 students nationwide enrolled.

It’s a beginning. And there’s more to come.

Academics writing in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, among other world languages are putting out papers about cli-fi and planning classes in the genre at the universities where they teach.

There is, of course, a long and storied history of teaching sci-fi at colleges in North America and Britain, with several universities even setting up literature departments that specialise in sci-fi research. Now cli-fi is joining the global academic world and finding a room of its own there as well.

Elizabeth Trobaugh and Steve Winters at Holyoke Community College are team-teaching a climate-themed literature class this semester titled “Cli Fi: Stories and Science from the Coming Climate Apocalypse.”

When I told Trobaugh that I planned to write an oped about her course, she replied: “Thank you for your interest in what we are doing this semester. Professor Winters and I thought we were onto something, and your email confirms our conviction that cli-fi is indeed on the rise, and this is the moment (as Macklemore says in the song) to catch the wave.”

Stephen Siperstein, a doctoral student at the University of Oregon, is also teaching a cli-fi literature class this semester, with his undergrad students posting weekly class blogs about what they are reading and how they are reacting to the new genre of fiction.

At Temple University, Ted Howell is teaching an undergraduate class titled “Cli-fi: Science Fiction, Climate Change, and Apocalypse” with about 30 students enrolled. They are also keeping weekly blogs about the course, using them to interact online outside of class with their professor and fellow students.

At SUNY Geneseo in upstate New York, Professor Ken Cooper is teaching a class this semester titled “Reader and Text: Cli-Fi.”

”Representative works will include Paolo Bacigalupi’s ‘The Windup Girl,’ Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Flight Behavior,’ and other novels,” Cooper told his students by way of introduction, adding mischievously: “There will be at least one zombie apocalypse, too.”

Siohban Carroll at the University of Delaware is a specialist in 19th century British literature, and told me in a recent Tweet: “I’m teaching a 19th Century ‘cli-fi’ class right now at the graduate level. One segment is on Mary Shelley and the Anthropocene.”

So there you have it. Cli-fi has reached into academia and found partners on college campuses. It’s a worldwide trend because global warming impacts us all, and literature and cinema always respond to the things that matter.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Shona evolved as a street language in Zimbabwe after this country introduced a policy that compelled all broadcast stations to air 75 percent of locally-produced material. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Hilary Siyachitema
HARARE, Jun 10 2014 (IPS)

“Ndipei sand dzangu,” (give me my hammers) sings Zimbabwean artist Winky D. He may be singing in Shona, the local language spoken by some 80 percent of Zimbabweans, but his Shona is different. It’s Street Shona. So what he really means, loosely translated, is that someone is exceptionally good at what they do and therefore needs to be recognised for this.

This southern African nation’s local language, Shona, has taken on an artistic form which has seen the language transform.

Shona, has its origins in the Bantu languages and is both a written and spoken language with dialects that include Zezuru, Korekore, Ndau and Manyika.

The evolution of Shona as a street language in Zimbabwe has become synonymous with Urban Grooves, a Zimbabwean music genre which became popular when this country introduced a policy that compelled all broadcast stations to air 75 percent of locally-produced material.“wotoshaya kuti zviri kufamba seyi” (not sure why things are going the way they are going) -- a popular phrase believed to have been started by local comedian Richard Matimba

“Our language, Shona, is now advanced, we are at a different level,” Tazvitya Kaseke from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, tells IPS as he describes the evolution of Shona into a form of art.

Although Urban Grooves is a form of music that has a largely youthful following, terms derived from this genre are not unique to the youth. Older people have also been known to use these terms.

An example is the current phrase “wotoshaya kuti zviri kufamba seyi” (not sure why things are going the way they are going), which has become popular in Harare. This phrase is believed to have been started by local comedian Richard Matimba.

Stanley Maniste, a youth based in Chitungwiza, a satellite town south of Harare, says street language here may have been made more popular by Urban Grooves but it was actually born on the streets.

“Music is just a vehicle that makes the current affairs of the street more popular. Street language is actually born in the streets of townships like Chitungwiza and Mbare,” Maniste tells IPS.

McDonald Nyathi, a budding artist also based in Chitungwiza, attributes the evolution of Shona to society itself and adds that music and the media create a platform for society’s views to be aired.

“I believe that this is a two-way street. Society creates and then artists and the media air the creation of society. But sometimes artists also create and these then become popular on the streets,” Nyathi tells IPS.

Music producer Lloyd Goredema links the increase in colloquial words and phrases to the economic slump in Zimbabwe.

“When the economy hit rock bottom people had to find ways of sustaining their livelihoods. This caused an increase in the number of artists, popularly known as urban groovers,” he tells IPS.

“This is also a result of the government’s 75 percent local content policy, which was introduced in 2002. The country didn’t have money for importing music by international artists, hence the airwaves were inundated with music that showed street and township life in Zimbabwe,” Goredema says.

Nyathi says that street language may not have been obvious prior to 2002, but it existed prior to this.

“Now that the channels have opened up it appears as if street language has suddenly increased,” Nyathi says.

Street language is also commonly derived from other sources like the ever increasing number of touts (popularly referred to as mahwindi) who work around taxi ranks in Zimbabwe’s major cities.

Businesses that advertise using both print and broadcast media have also added to the hype. A colloquial term “zva zvinhu” (these have become good things) has been made popular by a bread advertisement.

A study titled “What’s new in Shona street lingo?” conducted by Shumirai Nyota and Rugare Mareva, shows that street language in Zimbabwe exists because of a number of factors.

“Shona lingo consists of highly informal words or phrases which have been coined or formed by mixing languages. Speakers of Shona lingo use it in their informal discussions on any subject matter, especially on topical issues in Zimbabwe, such as politics, socio-economic issues and HIV. The vehicles or channels used to transmit street lingo include, emails, cell phone text messages, Shona lingo chat forums and urban groove music,” the study reveals.

Street language is not unique to Harare or the major cities of Zimbabwe. Youth and middle aged people in the rural areas of Zimbabwe also use the same kind of street language.

“The language starts in the streets and backyard recording studios of the major cities, especially Harare. It’s easy for the language to get to the rural areas because people travel regularly and because of the various technology which enables a lot of the language and trends to travel,” Tawanda Huhlu, an aspiring musician from Harare, tells IPS.

The phenomenon of street or colloquial language is not unique to the people of Zimbabwe but research has also shown that this trend is prevalent in other African countries. A  2009 study by a German researcher Flora Veit-Wild, called “Zimbolicious – the creative potential of linguistic innovation”, states that similar tendencies can be observed in the big cities of east, west and central Africa.

“Sheng, a mixture of Swahili and English is a language variety that has developed among young people in Nairobi, while Camfranglais, a bland of French, English and African languages, is spoken by mostly urban Cameroonians,” Veit-Wild notes in the study.

Artists see street language as an art as well as a glue that unites people.

“This kind of language unites us as a nation. We speak a common language, especially as young people and this in some ways creates an identity for us,” Goredema says.