Abstract: This essay explores the environmental potential of iterative storytelling—the practices, wherever they are found, of retelling the same stories over and over again with innumerable variations. While such storytelling is often seen as a failure of imagination, this essay argues the opposite. Iterative storytelling not only reveals a great deal of creativity beyond the usual standards of originality but also evinces considerable reparative potential. And in their press beyond the sensible scenarios of human-centered, realist fiction, iterative stories and their devices may help us practice the kind of thinking needed to face our climate crisis.
Coppa et al. (Mon,) studied this question.