From Narrative Ecological Collapse to Lagoon Reality: Young Adult Dystopian Climate Fiction as an Educative Laboratory Proposal for the City of Venice

This thesis investigates the ecopedagogical potential of modern Young Adult Dystopian Climate Fiction, questioning its ability to foster ecological imagination and environmental awareness in young readers. The study begins with a theoretical framework and proceeds with the comparative analysis of three novels: The High House by Jessie Greengrass, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, and Wilder Girls by Rory Power. The analysis explores how these three texts portray three different types of crisis – infrastructural, biochemical, and emotive – and how intergenerational relationships between children, adults, and elders are reshaped within dystopian settings. The aim is to comprehend how such narratives function as diagnostic, cognitive and emotional tools useful to interpret today’s horrors of the Anthropocene. Subsequently, the project shifts to the fragile reality of the territory of Venice, proposing an ecopedagogical laboratory that connects literary analysis with the methods of digital storytelling, ecological mapping, and intergenerational dialogue. Ultimately, this thesis investigates whether YAD cli-fi can serve as a pedagogical tool capable of connecting a text with a territory, helping contrast youth’s future blindness while promoting a new form of ecological citizenship.