(Il)legal Bodies: Activism, Climate Fictions, Climate Culling
Jonathan Hay | University of Chester
Publication: Volume 6 Issue 4
Excerpt | When the non-violent environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion (XR) was created in late 2018, I was completing a Masters in Research in Science Fiction Literature. Although initially nervous, I understood the urgent need to non-violently protest the lack of governmental action on the climate and ecological crisis (as it has since become known). In November 2018, I took a copy of Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods with me to London, where I was joined by thousands of fellow activists on the streets around the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street, many dressed as animals, with banners and flags protesting the sixth mass extinction and ongoing anthropogenic climate-related genocides across the globe.
Key words | Illegal Bodies, Climate Activism, Climate Fictions, Climate Culling, Anthropogenic Climate Impacts, Extractivism, Criminalised Environmental Protest, Anti-Protest Legislation, State Repression, Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Geoengineering, Clifi Narratives, Pedagogy
Jonathan Hay (j.hay@chester.ac.uk; ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1667-7257) is an Environmental Humanities researcher investigating the relationship between Science Fiction and Posthumanism in the Anthropocene. They gained their doctorate in this area from the University of Chester in 2022, where they continue to teach. Jonathan has led a project with the SF journal Hélice on Speculative Landscapes, and is Book Reviews Editor at Journal of Posthumanism. Their climate activism and related publications are supported by a community of resistance.
MLA Citation for this Article:
Hay, Jonathan. “(Il)legal Bodies: Activism, Climate Fictions, and Climate Culling.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 18 Dec. 2024, pp. 1.18–1.28, https://ellids.com/archives/2024/12/6.4-Forum-Hay.pdf.