An Inquiry into Earthquakes in Science, Fiction, and Science Fiction

Introduction & Frameworks

I want to explore the place of fictional stories in relation to scientific discourse. To this end, there are several theoretical frameworks which I aim to use to carve out the academic space of this inquiry. First, narrative is often used in discourses of environmental history, as William Cronon has discussed at length in A Place for Stories: Nature, Narrative, and History (Cronon 1992). While environmental historians use narrative to construct stories of the past that have bearing on the present moment, I wonder if stories or speculations of future events might have have bearing on the present moment in a similar way. To this end, I want to explore and apply theories about narrative form and fiction. One such theory is Ursula K Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, which argues that both stories and the way that we talk about stories have capacity to create meaning and thus impact culture (Le Guin 1986). I hope to regard fiction in two ways: as a place (imagined) and as a piece of technology. The concept of fiction as place comes from psychologists attempting to model the process of reader response. Researchers such as describe the act of reading in terms of absorption into the world of the story which coincides with a displacement from the world that the reader is physically in (Busselle et al 2008). As for the framework of story fiction as technology,  I lean on the parallels drawn in Le Guin’s theory alongside more abstract frameworks that acknowledge the symbolic function of language. This symbolic function can then be furthered by literary theorists and poets (such as John Keats) who regard narrative and fictional forms as extensions of this symbolic mode. As language is a tool created by humans for a purpose, I regard narrative fiction as a  piece of human technology. As I explored here, regarding language and fiction as such in the field of environmental studies which sometimes has a unique and optimistic vision of technology is provocative.

While I have explored theories of narrative and fiction the most so far, the subjectivity evoked by fiction nods towards another theoretical argument relevant to my project: that of objectivity in science. As we discussed in our Environmental Theory class, the science wars which raged in the 1990s argues at length about the objectivity pursued by scientific inquiry and the philosophical dilemmas thereof. Interestingly, this debate has close connections with similar debates in literary theory regarding post-structuralism. I want to avoid being subsumed by these heady and high-stakes clashes of thought, but I do wish to approach my comparison or relation of fiction and scientific communication with objectivity debates in mind.

Situated Context

I choose to examine as a case study the representation of earthquakes in literature in relation to scientific discourse surrounding earthquake risk. This is motivated by several cases of fiction being used by different PSA campaigns and media outlets in order to persuade audiences to prepare for disasters. This particular focus is motivated by a recent push to persuade residents of the Pacific Northwest to prepare for a major earthquake that is unprecedented, at least from the time of colonial westward expansion. Therefore, earthquake preparation is absent from the culture of many settlements in the Pacific Northwest, unlike in places like San Francisco or Los Angeles where recent events have impacted the culture profoundly. Further, Portland is often seen as safe from other disasters such as hurricanes, and therefore many residents, visitors, businesses, and entire metropolitan infrastructures are decidedly unprepared for a variety of potential disasters. Recent geologic scholarship has  conducted analyses of undersea sediments, tsunami deposits, and landslides to construct a timeline of previous earthquake events along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and calculated recurrence intervals (Goldfinger et al 2012). This analysis has concluded that a major (9.0) earthquake is due for the entire Pacific Northwest and will happen in the future. These scientific conclusions have yet to result in many measures of preparation on many scales. While there has been a definite increase in awareness about the Cascadia Subduction Zone risks and hazards, there is yet to be a cultural movement towards an “earthquake culture.” This project is motivated by an inquiry of how to create an earthquake culture in the Pacific Northwest.

In many representations and lived experiences, earthquakes are devastating, landscape altering events that are embedded in culture by necessity. Fiction in both literature and media has a unique space in this concept we call culture. I am to apply theoretical frameworks of prospective narrative, the function of fiction as technology and place, and fictional subjectivity to fiction representing earthquakes real, imagined, experienced, and predicted.  In doing so, I hope to explore the unique capacity of fiction to augment scientific discourse and communication in the task of communicating knowledge to the public.

Questions

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Question Type, Question

Instrumental, How can fiction be used to augment in scientific and popular communication regarding natural disasters?

Evaluative, What aspects of communication is fiction ideal for? How might those aspects be useful in communicating about natural disasters?

Explanatory, Why does fiction communicate ideas differently than scientific and popular non-fiction? What cultural status or psychological function do fictional narratives have that make them unique methods of communication?

Descriptive, Does fiction communicate ideas differently than scientific and popular non-fiction communication? If so what are those differences?

Framing/Guiding, How does the form and content of fiction render and communicate the interplay between nature and culture?  

Focus/Research, How can (do)  fictional renderings of earthquakes augment scientific and popular communication regarding natural disasters? 

[/table]

Methodology

I will read and/or watch 4-6 pieces of fiction depicting earthquake scenarios. See here for a list of potential pieces. I aim to focus on fictional stories that correspond to earthquake events or risks that are recognized by the scientific community (e.g. the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the San Andreas Fault, the 2011 Tohoku event). I will conduct a literary or media analysis of these texts along one or several of the following criteria:

1. Discourse Analysis: I can do a literary review of the scientific and popular media associated with the event or risk and compare the fictional piece to how the event is depicted in media or scientific discourse.
2. Genre Conventions: I can read literature describing the genre conventions of the form in which the fiction takes (short story, novel, feature disaster film) and compare the earthquake fiction to the genre conventions in order to evaluate how the scientific components of the narrative impact its genre.
3. Characters (Relationships): Using ANT maps and other literary schematics, I can examine how the fictional pieces represent human characters in relation to government agencies, disaster response, scientists, and other stakeholders. I can evaluate whether these relationships are embedded with a value judgement, such as depicting an ideal interactions between government officials and earthquake survivors or scientists and residents of a vulnerable community.
4. Characters (Non-human): I can examine the representation of the event itself (is it personified? valued in some way? agentive?) and/or the built environment that it effects. This analysis would be along the lines of ecocriticism, especially by regarding non-human objects or earth-systems events as characters (or plot elements).

References:

Busselle, Rick, and Helena Bilandzic. 2008. “Fictionality and Perceived Realism in Experiencing Stories: A Model of Narrative Comprehension and Engagement.”Communication Theory 18 (2): 255–80. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2008.00322.x.

Cronon, W. (1992). A place for stories: Nature, history, and narrative. The Journal of American History, 1347–1376.

Goldfinger, C. et al. (2012). Turbidite Event History: Methods and Implications for Holocene Paleoseismicity of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. US Department of the Interior, US Geological Survey.