Speculative World-Building, Modernity, and the Text in Crisis: An Ecological Reading of Renee Gladman’s Ravicka Novels

Abstract

This article considers the interrelation between capitalist modernity as ecological crisis and the crisis of the textual economy in Renee Gladman’s experimental novels set in the fictional city-state of Ravicka (2010–2017). The article shows how Gladman attempts to reposition the experimental work within the world-literary field by framing the text itself as ecological, at once implicated in cultural and geopolitical modes of production and circulation, and generative in terms of speculative world-building. The article focuses on Gladman’s exploration of urban space and architecture in relation to ecological catastrophe, and draws comparisons with other speculative designs, such as the People’s Parliament of Rojava in Northern Syria. While Gladman’s eroding architectural-linguistic landscape translates world-ecological issues like forced displacement, race, gender, pollution, and unevenly distributed forms of eco-political violence, her texts also problematize projection and allegorical modes of reading, signaling the abstraction of social relations in modernity. The article suggests that Gladman’s experimental writing ultimately hopes to open a new space of relational, embodied thinking while finding creative energy and resilience within the political constraints of literary production.