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Junsheng Zeng, Rikkyo University, JapanAbstract
This paper argues that Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction anticipates contemporary debates about ecological collapse and degrowth ethics. While Vonnegut has traditionally been read through the lens of war trauma, his satirical treatment of science, technology and capitalism maps closely onto current concerns about planetary boundaries and the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet. The first section examines the metaphor of ice-nine in Cat’s Cradle as an extreme figure for the simplification of complex ecosystems under industrial modernity, prefiguring contemporary discussions of tipping points and systemic breakdown. The second section reads God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater as a narrative experiment in degrowth, in which Eliot Rosewater’s radical philanthropy and resistance to accumulation model forms of redistribution and relocalization that challenge growth-driven capitalism. The third section turns to Breakfast of Champions to show how Vonnegut’s black humor exposes finance and the stock market as “magic” systems detached from material well-being and ecological limits. Bringing Vonnegut into dialogue with recent work in environmental economics and theory, this paper contends that his ecological parables function as interdisciplinary storytelling: they translate abstract data about energy, land use and systemic risk into accessible narrative forms. Ultimately, Vonnegut’s work offers both a warning and an imaginative toolkit for reorganizing social and economic life after growth.
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Conference: KAMC2025Stream: Literature
This paper is part of the KAMC2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Zeng J. (2026) Posthuman Ecologies: Degrowth Ethics and Environmental Trauma in Kurt Vonnegut’s Speculative Fiction ISSN: 2436-0503 – The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 693-701) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2025.56
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2025.56
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