The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture

by Mark Bould

From Ducks, Newburyport to zombie movies to Fast and Furious, how climate anxiety permeates our culture

The art and literature of our time is pregnant with catastrophe, with weather and water, wildness and weirdness. The Anthropocene—the term given to this geological epoch in which humans, anthropos, are wreaking havoc on the earth—is to be found bubbling away everywhere in contemporary cultural production. The Anthropocene, Mark Bould argues, constitutes the unconscious of “the art and literature of our time.”

Tracing the outlines of the Anthropocene unconscious in a range of film, television and literature—across a range of genres and with utter disregard for high-low culture distinctions—this playful and riveting book draws out some of the things that are repressed and obscured by the term “the Anthropocene,” including capital, class, imperialism, inequality, alienation, violence, commodification, patriarchy and racial formations. The Anthropocene Unconscious is about a kind of rewriting. It asks: what happens when we stop assuming that the text is not about the anthropogenic biosphere crises engulfing us? What if all the stories we tell are stories about the Anthropocene? About climate change?

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Environment, Criticism, Theory, Ecology, Climate Change

178 pages, Hardcover

Published November 2, 2021

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Occasionally I come across a book that makes me feel profoundly vindicated. In The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture, Bould asks what if (nearly) all pop culture is subtextually about climate catastrophe? I have been saying this for years!! Just now I dug deep into my disorganised google drive and found a two thousand word outline I wrote in 2015 for a book about contemporary postapocalyptic and dystopian fiction making this very point. (One of many creative ways I procrastinated during my PhD.) Thank you Mark Bould for actually writing it and, crucially, for including an entire chapter on B-movies made by The Asylum. If you haven't come across their oeuvre, the most famous examples are the Sharknado series but there are many, many more. Certain friends and I have been connoisseurs of this garbage for fifteen years; I have fond memories of rotting my brain by watching Snakes on a Train (which is no worse than Snakes on a Plane), Transmorphers (which is better than Transformers), Mega Piranha (which is better than Piranha 3D), Sherlock Holmes (which features robot dinosaurs), and 2-Headed Shark Attack (which is certainly a film).

The Asylum and Syfy promulgate an image of themselves as being fun, not serious, so as to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce and broadcast. And they obey a commercial imperative to maximise their niche audience segment by remaining superficial. At the same time, the franchise enacts - and speaks to - a habituated desensitisation to the ever-present existential threat of anthropogenic climate destablisation. But whatever its source, this disinclination, this silence, does not mean that the franchise is not about climate change.

Bould details the particular charm of Asylum productions and make a strong argument that shoddy creature features are about the horror of the natural world we have exploited uncontrollably biting us in the face. Pretty sure I made this exact point while watching the Syfy Channel productions Sharktopus and Piranhaconda.

Subsequent chapters consider examples from art cinema and literary fiction with some subtextual relevance to climate change. I think The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture is a little harsh in its attempts to refute Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, although I appreciated the analysis of Gun Island. Bould argues that just because literary fiction isn't literally about climate change, it can still be subtextually about it. That's fair enough, and there are many great novels that explore that subtext, but Ghosh's main point still stands: a lot of literary fiction entirely ignores the fact that humans live in ecosystems. Nature's impact on society has to be acknowledged somehow for fiction to offer much in the way of subtextual comment on climate change.

Thus creature feature B-movies generally offer more subtextual scope than highbrow novels about collapsing marriages. Moreover, just because a book or film can be read as subtextually about climate change doesn't mean it has anything interesting to say on the topic. I appreciated the summaries of Karl Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book 1 and Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1. Both are really long and now I don't need to read them; the themes Bould picked out seem unlikely to hold my interest for thousands of pages.

Fiction about trees gets its own chapter, ranging from Richard Powers' The Overstory to Groot in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Then the concluding chapter opens with a sublime, indeed perfect, page titled 'The Dialectics of Dominic Toretto' and including a Marx quote containing the phrase 'the fast and furious'. This made me so happy, you have no idea. Another procrastination effort during my PhD was writing an essay on the Fast and Furious series as an extended commentary on the War on Terror. None of the subsequently released instalments have refuted my thesis, although maybe it's too obvious given the linkage between action movies and the American military. Anyway, I liked Bould's take on my favourite stupid car movies:

Documents of petrocultural barbarism, the films nonetheless glimpse post-white supremacist civilisation. Structured by this contradiction, they are neither one nor the other, but both - at every turn and all the way down.

They indulge in Great Acceleration fantasies of limitless petroleum but also show the reckless cities and slow violence those fantasies produce. They possess a post-national imaginary but always constrained by the world market and touristic gaze. The characters constantly stick it to The Man, but also end up working for Him. They are rebellious, but pretty much accept the world as it is: street-racing defies the law but never really colours outside the lines.

The final chapter also neatly summarises the whole book:

From sharknadoes to slow cinema, from slabs of bourgeois solipsism to the crepuscular domain of ligneous lives, we have seen the anthropocene lurking within texts that have little or no idea that that is what they're talking about.

I have given The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture five stars because I read it with profound delight, but in my opinion it isn't nearly long enough. There are so many more examples to discuss and points to be made! My 2015 book outline was focused on how the climate emergency is changing apocalyptic and dystopian depictions in comparison those of the 20th century, an angle not really covered here. There's a lot to be said about what literary fiction about climate change assumes about human behaviour in extreme circumstances. Of particular interest to me is how to end a novel about climate change: often novels textually about climate change end up subtextually about death, which is interesting. On the film front, I feel that director Ronald Emmerich's rich tradition of crap formulaic disaster movies deserves consideration, especially as he made a really stupid climate change film: The Day After Tomorrow. A friend of mine was involved in research (Balmford et al, 2004) that found cinemagoers had more concern but less knowledge about climate change after seeing that masterpiece. Emmerich has subsequently made 2012 and Moonfall, in which the Earth's core goes wrong and the moon goes wrong respectively. Surely there is some insight into anthropocene anxiety to be gleaned there?

I could go on but will refrain. So much of this review is about me because it's rare for one short book to combine so many of my enthusiasms. The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture is certainly the most enjoyable nonfiction about climate change I've ever read. Usually such books leave me with an oppressive sense of doom, whereas this had me smiling happily. Whether I actually learned anything or just felt like my opinions were legitimised is another question. If you enjoy academic analysis of crap films, I also recommend the chapter on Dude, Where's My Car? in The Queer Art of Failure.

[Jonfaith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Showtime series Billions was a lamentable pastiche of citations that failed to conceal the vacuity of the characters. It became less an examination than a trivia event. Likewise I find Mark Bould insufferable at his Mark Fisher imitation and I fucking hate Fisher. Even worse than failure I hate this book because it is dishonest.

Speaking of the “carbon culture death drive”, Mark Bould quotes James Baldwin to address the Fast and Furious franchise. Bould is likely earnest. He’s offering a much needed reading of this cultural text/phenomenon. I’m not sold it is needed nor even requested. It’s lazy.

Bould offers a premise that films and literature need to be analyzed as critiques of the Anthropocene even if this wasn’t an authorial intention. Add your smartass Derrida quote here. There is a germ of genuine criticism at play, but it remains play in contrast to the grave circumstances of an overheating planet.

[Ilia · Rating 1 out of 5]

An indulgent and frustrating work of exegesis – Bould takes novels and films almost at random and reads them radically (with little regard to authorial intent) to provide tenuous connections to climate change. So the book is less an exploration of the unconsious fear of climate change underlying contemporary culture, and more about Bould's own conscious efforts to find that fear in every article of culture he chooses. His argument is that such readings, if they become mainstream (a big if), will help fortify resolve to address the crisis. It's a claim I don't find particularly convincing – there are probably better ways to inspire action on the climate. On that, it's notable that Bould's broad-brush depiction of the failures of governments and businesses, which might help raise the reader's consciousness on the climate emergency, are not footnoted at all, in contrast to the sections analysing culture, which are densely, sometimes pointlessly, footnoted (there's no need for so many ibids...)

I'll admit that I find Bould's approach to criticism (always a risk, no final proof), to be ultimately unsatisfying. The notion that all readings are equal is a radical one, but I think it leaves the practice at a dead end. For me the patient work of excavating authorial intent is more fruitful, but I'm prepared to look past this if the readings are at least interesting. I don't think the book succeeds in this department either, however. Bould spends far too much time describing the works he's supposed to be analysing, and only briefly ties those descriptions to an argument. The book discursive nature makes it feel longer than it is, and frequently leaves you unsure of the point Bould is trying to make. To be honest, my eyes started glazing over towards the end.

[Fraser Simons · Rating 4 out of 5]

With such a short page count, you can imagine it’s near impossible to provide a definitive thesis on the subject. But I think the point is still pretty well made through the short hand of literature and visual media.

Essentially, it boils down to the notion that within culture, regardless of specific intent, there is a climate fiction through-line in contemporary fiction and media, though even further back is probable. Dystopia or utopia, mere visual aesthetic or otherwise, there is knot of anxiety in the cultural consciousness around climate effects.

While some properties combat this with popular delusions—an amusing correlation being the fast and furious franchise, literally making petrol fuelled fantasias before the oil runs dry or everyone dies; a product trying to milk every last Penny from the people denying reality and constantly wish to imagine that what we consume for entertainment has no basis in reality. As if it could actually be divorced.

The author goes into how the framing of climate fiction in particular is curious as well. Authors who don’t classify their works and others as “cli-fi” often use motifs that specifically invoke environmental changes from climate change to great effect. So when can or should a story be “about” climate effects and change?

Though consumers don’t want to acknowledge the realities of the crisis, it bleeds through into art and politics and entertainment regardless, subconsciously. I think that’s quite true. And the attempt to sketch a few salient points ends up being extremely entertaining to read. Short; punchy; conversational, yet deploying specific jargon and diction, the piece walks an effective line between making an argument and keeping the attention and accessibility of the text.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time I read this freewheeling, often breathtakingly incisive analysis of anthropocene culture. The elaborate takedowns of the literary novel in its many guises and the more serious arthouse film sections are parts I rushed through a bit this time – the opening chapters and the conclusion are some of the most enjoyable writing I've ever seen.

[Sabrina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very vague, lots of questions, very few answers.
I can also take a few puns, but this book is littered with word play (see for example "let us pop the franchise's hood" in reference to Fast & Furious) so much that it gets annoying after a couple of pages (weird to end the conclusion with F&F as well).
Mostly just synopsis and a little bit of analysis of various media (Sharknado to The Overstory).
"If we start from the position that all cultural texts are about climate change" and "we should also never try to reduce texts [...] to singular fixed meanings" doesn't go as well together as Bould thought.
Disappointing and elusive, which Bould says we should celebrate as it is an asset in "making criticism activism" (yet again, vague on the how and what this entails).

[Ceci Rigby]

Would have been more compelling as an exploration of the title alone rather than an attempt at a rallying cry. My brother: quoting James Baldwin in your dissection of the Fast and Furious franchise is not how we’re going to take down Exxon. This guy also loves his thesaurus which started to get old but I did learn a lot of cool new words

[eve massacre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it and the final sentences might become my new mantra:
"But down here in the Fast-and-Furiocene, our choice is clear.
Ecosocialism or barbarism.
Ride or die."
The concept of reading today's films and books as being about climate change (with a nod to queer theory) fills a hole.

[Ondřej Plachý · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading The Anthropocene Unconscious for its specific flow of thoughts and meanings (which probably makes it quite demanding read, but I guess you are ready if you are concerned with the topic).

With no formal training in cultural critique, I find it fascinating how authors like him (or Žižek, or Bělohradský) can just take a random piece of our everyday reality and dissect it so profoundly that they allow something in my brain to click and say yeah, that is something I have never thought about. This excercise is useful even for a small scale deployment in our own lives.

This essay just works - in its cultural deconstruction of environmental destruction, in its ability to find meaning in the most meaningless parts of our culture (Fast and Furious, Sharkonado) as well as in the much more meaningful pieces (Overgrowth from Powers, classical Scifi with A. C. Clarke).

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Held back by vulgar or underdeveloped readings of its chosen texts half the time but an overall decent application of Marxist literary criticism and a pretty good (though at times romantic in an "I'm an academic who dislikes academics" way) call for the asserting the role of cultural criticism in combatting climate change and championing ecosocialism

[James Mackay · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important, desperately necessary book.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book sets itself up in opposition to Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. As such some understanding of what Ghosh has written is necessary to understand this book. In Ghosh’s book he argues that while climate change has been a defining issue of the Late-20th and Early-21st Century it is dramatically under-discussed in the literary and fiction works that have been produced in this time. Bould takes issue with this arguing that a not too close reading of many cultural products shows the climate change, and the human nature relationship is at the forefront, if not explicitly. Taking this as the premise Bould then goes on a whirlwind through largely western culture to show how the changing climate, existential environmental threats and relationships to nature are at the centre of things as disparate as the Sharknado franchise, Ghosh’s own writing and a whole host of other culture.

I have been excited to read this book for a while and found it a rewarding read equipping me with many tools to analyse the culture I consume. I have found myself recently watching things and thinking how this plot helps us learn about climate change. Recently through trying to learn Bengali I stumbled across a cache of Bengali dubbed Spiderman movies and began to watch them, having never been interested in superhero films before. Thinking of them as often trashy, USian, and capitalist propaganda. In one sense that is true, but they also tell of the stories of the danger of technology, science and power. The Oscorp of the Garfield films show the danger of scientists who propose grand solutions, or the way those with power shape innovation to their own needs and not necessarily the publics. Equally, Holland’s series show the way in which control of a corporation can enable the worst of human nature. While not explicitly environmental the lessons of an environmental watching are useful, and this is very much what Bould is encouraging us to do.

His critique of Ghosh as focusing too much on high-brow literature and culture and not enough on sci-fi, fantasy and low-brow media and literature is also valid. While I am less a fan of fantasy so I can’t comment on it there is an abundance of Sci Fi that deals with the environment and climate in often deeply sophisticated ways (For example, Snow Piercer, Dune and The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia). In many ways Ghosh point stands that high-brow literature isn’t puling it’s weight, but maybe the criticism should be less the literature designed to represent, as Bould suggests, the bourgeois lives of the affluent, and more the failure of educated bourgeois affluent people to look further afield for their cultural input (Maybe my hesitance at watching super hero films is a good example). Bould does go on to point out that even within literature examples of climate and environment are abundant if not explicit or designed to be there by the authors.

While it is clear from the above that there is a lot to like in Bould’s writing, and that it is a useful intellectual project my criticism would be that it was very good at cultural analysis but his understanding of real-world issues lacks a certain nuance. Where he imagines what a climate and capitalism changed future might look like he discusses swarms of climate migrants, and submersion. These are common imaginaries of the future, but that doesn’t necessarily make them correct and innumerable activists, scholars, journalists and more have pointed out the ways these narratives do dangerous work for the interests of capital, colonialism and repression (Including Ghosh in his brilliant book The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis).

While I have given this book a 4 stars it is well worth reading, and one that has changed the way I will be watching, reading and listening for a long time.

[O Berry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poses a very good question of why, if literature/film/other pop culture often reflects contemporary anxieties, there is little media that directly and competently deals with the climate crisis. Makes a rogue decision to assert all cultural texts are therefore about the crisis in an unconscious way but I appreciated the merits of this idea.

Sadly for long stretches felt as though I was having random films or books explained to me with little relevance and very tenuous theoretical backing. Suffers then from not justifying why the examined texts were chosen, and also why other texts weren't—barely mentions any of the highest grossing/most culturally significant films and shows from the past 20 years, despite obvious themes being there to talk about (think Avengers—the myth of overpopulation; Avatar—colonialism and resource exploitation; GoT—upper classes bicker whilst dismissing the non-human threat slowly encroaching from the North etc).

I do actually agree with a lot of the arguments presented, but don't think these were presented particularly strongly here.

[August Bourré · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with both the premise and with most of Bould's conclusions. That being said: his constant use of the word "mundane" to describe literary fiction – historically, a term of contempt in SF/F circles – along with a kind of generalized bitterness over the lack of mainstream acceptance for science fiction (which does not reflect reality; science fiction and fantasy have been triumphantly dominating mainstream media for at least a decade, and have been accepted as legitimate areas of study in academia for at least twice as long – but he's also more than happy to gloss over the deeply conservative roots of SF/F that have made it even slower to grapple with the racism, misogyny, classism, and colonialism in its ranks than so-called "mundane" fiction) can make this book tough reading at times. Bould seems to be obsessed with his own angry cleverness, reminiscent of David Mitchell (the comedian, not the author), but without either the good faith stance or the self-awareness. He's not a bad writer, but he spends far too much time getting in his own way. I'd also have preferred if his survey of contemporary literary works was a bit broader; most of what he presents, though mercifully not all, is either decades old or from well-regarded authors long past their prime. There are better works out there that would make a stronger case for his argument, but honestly he seemed to be more interested in being a dick about non-genre writing than looking for the best available examples to support his theory. He's so insufferable through much of the book that I was tempted to give this only two stars, but the problem is he's right in much of his analysis of how the "anthropocene unconscious" influences contemporary art.

[Eduardo Spieler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Há um diálogo direto entre este livro e The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, de Amitav Ghosh. Esses dois textos poderiam funcionar de forma complementar, caso a premissa de Ghosh fosse reafirmada: haveria uma nova estética capaz de explorar, nas artes, as mudanças climáticas do planeta? Se tal estética existe, de que modo ela se manifesta na literatura? E, daqui a 25 anos, qual literatura representará o que está ocorrendo no presente momento?
Partindo da suposição de que essa forma ainda não foi plenamente alcançada, Bould poderia aprofundar a análise daquilo que considera como advindo do inconsciente. A partir dos conceitos freudianos, seria possível identificar o trauma primordial — aquele que origina um recalcamento e que se manifesta, de maneira inconsciente, em diversas expressões artísticas. Poder-se-ia afirmar, em consonância com a teoria psicanalítica, que a humanidade encontra-se "grávida do Antropoceno", a ponto de a psique humana representar elementos que escapam à percepção imediata e, à revelia do sujeito, acabarem por emergir na arte como expressão das angústias provocadas pela nova era geológica.

Bould, contudo, adota uma abordagem niveladora ao afirmar que produções tão distintas quanto Sharknado, Velozes e Furiosos e as obras de Knausgård representariam, todas, uma nova estética em diálogo com as mudanças climáticas. Cara, daí tu te passou

[Daniele Zurbrügg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great little book about climate crisis and the responses to it by (western) culture. It’s resonated with my own thoughts ahout the way climate change seems so absent and present in current lit and films. Sometimes the discussions a little truncated hut I appreciate a slim and snappy book. Also got some good film and reading recommendations from it.

I know that some people will find the readings of climate into basically all sorts of narratives somehow too much(?) or lacking precision, explanatory value. But as Bould writes these interpretations aren’t excluding what else the work is about. And like Bould, I think in pinpointing these elements of impotence, ‘already dead’-ness, powerlessness in the face of naturr and the exonomic processes that change and degrade it. I think more climate-focused readings can only be a good thing.

[Mattschratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was okay. It has a lot (like, a lot) of explaining the plots of the things he writes about, especially films, and then a gesture at the ways in which those plots express in some way or other the titular unconscious. The obvious comp is Jameson's political unconscious, and maybe it's unfair to want this book to have something as generative as Jameson's method; but there's not a ton of method here beyond noting that there are climate things to be said even about Sharknado or Ducks, Newburyport. So, it was a short read that will make me think more about a lot of other things: and that's pretty good.

[Chup · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is punchy, curious and thoughtful and the arguments are persuasive in so far as they are developed. I especially like the discussions on temporality (with the film Arrival) and the conclusion - an extremely readable parallel drawn between the Fast & Furious franchise and the petrochemical industry (the final lines left me grinning with their cleverness). However, I think Bould's reading of the texts he employs as examples often veer towards being too descriptive (rather than analytical). This book definitely got me thinking but it was not as substantial as I would have liked in the end.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's some meat on these bones, and some thoughts to ponder, but ultimately I was left feeling a certain dissatisfaction with the end result. I was hoping for a more concrete analysis, but maybe I got my hopes up too much for a book that clocks in at about 142 pages for something as monumental as the specter of climate change embedded in the media we consume. There are interesting ruminations on what current and past writings and films offer (and do not offer) to our subconscious fears towards climate change, but I would like to see these ideas expanded on further in a weightier text.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The theses here are good (that, fundamentally, literature and media is in the process of confronting climate change even (and specifically!) when the text isn't explicitly about climate change, and that forms our relationship/sublimation of the topic) but I found Bould a bit less compelling in his reading of the texts he presented. That being said, any critical theory that wraps around Sharknados and Dominic Toretto has endeared me at least a bit.

[Hannah Roush · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t read a lot of theory, but appreciated this. It’s very western-centric and has a lot of over-culture navel-gazing in it, which is sort of necessary to the critique within it. It did help me loosen any grip I had around taking mass media and pop culture seriously. I liked how poetic the theory was, and there were moments of true excitement in it. Not sure I would have read it had it not been assigned, but grateful I made it through.

[Ewan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the inner flap states, "What if all the stories we tell today are fundamentally about climate change?" I was more interested going in than I was whilst reading. I feel the author spent too much time reviewing pop-culture and lost sight of their message. Or the reviewing was their message? Either way, it is a short read and interesting to think about.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed work of exegesis that, despite the publisher's blurb, focuses on 'high culture' much more than 'low.' The concluding chapter on The Fast and the Furious franchise is the strongest. I definitely would have liked for Bould to do a reading of more major contemporary cultural works. What of the existential threats expressed in superhero and Star Wars films?

[Manuel González V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ecosocialism or barbarism indeed.

Amazing essays. Never thought of reading something like this about the Sharknado and Fast&Furious franchises.

It is really all about climate change. Even when it doesn’t appear to be at all.

[Mona · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when we stop assuming that the text is not about the anthropogenic biosphere crises engulfing us? What if all the stories we tell are stories about the anthropogen? About climate change!

[Michela Belcore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessante perché cerca di decostruire il tipo di narrazione che ha caratterizzato e ancora caratterizza il disastro climatico. È solo da poco tempo che leggo di questo tema ma devo dire che fornisce molti spunti di riflessione, anche letture e film, per poter continuare l'esplorazione.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting and brilliant, Bould's book ranges widely and eclectically as a formally-geared approach to the argument(s) that drive(s) it.
Dark and funny and inspiring!

[Danny Steur]

A provocative/evocative argument, compellingly - and constantly irreverently, even frequently hilariously - made.

[Alberto Palumbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Molto dispersivo, sono onesto, ma si lascia leggere (e poi è tradotto pure bene: Marta Olivi ormai come traduttrice è sinonimo di garanzia).

[Franz Ronco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pur se ammirevole negli intenti, tesi di fondo debole rinforzata con una serie di argomentazioni quantomeno traballanti. Il giudizio espresso nei confronti di Paul Auster fa rabbrividire.