The Dark Lit Up: Ecosystemic Writing as a New Multi-Modality for the Climate Crisis

Scott, Logan (2025) The Dark Lit Up: Ecosystemic Writing as a New Multi-Modality for the Climate Crisis. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

Preview

PDF Download (194MB) | Preview

Abstract

The climate crisis exists on a scale that far exceeds our day-to-day experience. At the same time, our stories have largely written the more-than-human world into the background in favour of anthropocentric narrative models. This project is an attempt to develop a workable model that can speak to the scale and complexity of climate change while decentring the human and accepting the disorder and non-linearity of the more-than-human world. The proposal is a new hybrid, multi-modal narrative form I call ecosystemic writing.

To explore and demonstrate this form, the project consists of two sections: 1.) an original work of ecosystemic writing, a novel entitled The Dark Lit Up, 2.) a critical enquiry, which sits in conversation with the novel. The critical enquiry has three main chapters, opening with a discussion around the spatial-temporal scale of climate change and the challenges it poses to narrative fiction. Chapters two and three focus on the two primary, formal responses demonstrated within The Dark Lit Up. Chapter two argues for the application of abstraction and narrative disruption as a way to provide space for the more-than-human world within a narrative structure. Chapter three investigates theories of photography within the context of memory studies and, in turn, advocates for the use of personal photography to speak to the role of memory in our experience of climate change and biodiversity loss. Throughout the thesis, the core arguments presented across these three chapters are supported with visual examples from the novel and page references to support the proposal for ecosystemic writing.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	02 Dec 2025 11:57
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2025 11:57
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101178
DOI:

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item