Episode 22: Jim Phelan & Erin James — Rachel Carson’s “A Fable for Tomorrow” from Silent Spring

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Erin James discuss the opening chapter of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, “A Fable for Tomorrow.” Erin James is a Professor of English at the University of Idaho and is the current Past President of the International Society for the Study of Narrative. James has done important and influential work in econarratology, especially on narratives about the climate crisis. Her 2015 book, The Storyworld Accord: Econarratology and Postcolonial Narratives, won the Narrative Society’s Perkins Prize for best book in narrative studies. Her 2022 book, Narrative in the Anthropocene, asks what narrative can teach us about the current geological epoch, which is marked by the effects of human activity on the planet, and what that epoch can teach us about narrative.