ECOLOGIES OF URBAN DECAY: ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND POST-ANTHROPOCENTRIC IMAGINARIES IN TEA OBREHT'S THE MORNINGSIDE

Abstract

Contemporary climate fiction increasingly foregrounds cities as vulnerable ecological spaces rather than symbols of human mastery. However, urban environments remain underexplored in eco-critical studies that continue to privilege rural or wilderness settings. This article addresses this gap by examining how Téa Obreht’s The Morningside (2024) conceptualizes urban decay as a form of ecological crisis and critiques anthropocentric assumptions embedded in modern urban life. The central problem investigated is how environmental degradation, infrastructural collapse, and climate-induced displacement reshape human consciousness and urban imaginaries in a near-future dystopian city. The main objectives of this study are threefold: first, to analyze the representation of urban decay as ecological destruction in The Morningside (2024); second, to explore how ecological consciousness emerges through lived urban experiences, memory, and displacement; and third, to examine how the novel challenges human-centered worldviews by imagining post-anthropocentric relationships between humans, non-human life, and deteriorating urban spaces. The study employs eco-criticism as its primary theoretical framework, drawing on the foundational insights of Cheryll Glotfelty and Lawrence Buell, alongside contemporary concepts such as the Anthropocene, environmental justice, slow violence (Rob Nixon), and post-humanism. Through this framework, the article argues that The Morningside (2024) reconfigures the city as an ecological agent and a site of environmental memory, thereby contributing to post-anthropocentric imaginaries in climate fiction. Ultimately, the study highlights literature’s critical role in fostering ecological awareness by situating the environmental crisis at the heart of urban existence.