Réflexivité environnementale et (in)conscience de la crise écologique dans la littérature catastrophiste du XIXe siècle
Environmental Reflexivity and (Un)awareness of the Ecological Crisis in French Catastrophist Literature of the Nineteenth Century

Summary/Abstract: Recent work by science historians has shown that environmental awareness is not unique to our “reflexive modernity”. As early as the 15th century, human agency was envisaged as a factor of change in various climate theories which oscillated between optimism and fear of disaster. This climate awareness informed 19th century catastrophist literature which examined technoculture specific to industrial societies in terms of both its power and negative consequences. The works of Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville, Alfred Bonnardot and Camille Flammarion provide an insight into how literature both appropriates and subverts the knowledge of the economy of nature and of climate, defusing fears and producing a certain kind of the environmental unconscious.

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