Project Details
Abstract
The much-discussed concept of the "Anthropocene" – the name for the geological epoch of the present – conveys the consciousness that humans have become a force of nature severely affecting the earth system.
Nature has been profoundly transformed by humans on a global scale. The term therefore calls a redefinition of the relationship between humans and nature: to live in the Anthropocene involves a new form of being-in-the-world. Taking this new understanding of human being-in-the-world as our general framework, the project sets out to investigate the aesthetical and poetic implications of the Anthropocene. How can literature present and narrate this new mode of existence? Which literary forms are able to address this insight and represent the new understanding of nature? The project’s basic assumption is that such a poetics of the Anthropocene is above all a reflection on form: natural forms, but also literary form. The project’s corpus ranges from Döblin, Handke, Frisch and Sebald to the most recent work of Schrott, Ruoff, Jirgl, C. Enzensberger, Dath and Weiss, and will be supplemented with publications that appear over the course of the project. We consider how these texts address the question of form and the transformation in nature (specifically that of landscapes and organisms) and how this reflection plays out in formal experiments in literarary texts. Our methods are twofold:
(1) We reconstruct the scientific contexts, specifically in geology and biology, that inform the literary texts and provide their epistemic frameworks. To do so, we will examine the text’s production process and sources through archival research (Döblin, Sebald, Frisch, C. Enzensberger, possibly Handke) as well as interviews with living authors (Schrott, Ruoff, Jirgl, Dath, Weiss).
(2) We analyze the experiments in literary form – the play of genres, narrative modes, types of text, style etc. – that literary texts engage in with regard to the Anthropocene. On the basis of these elements of form, our goal is to elaborate a poetics of the Anthropocene. A comprehensive analysis of poetic form in the
Anthropocene has so far not been attempted. We also hope to provoke a lively scholarly debate on the aesthetic and poetic implications of this new epoch in the German speaking world. We hope to develop tools for a better understanding of the role of literature within the context of the Anthropocene by demonstrating how literature presents a medium for reflection on the relation between humans and nature in the Anthropocene.
The project will be directed by Prof. Dr. Eva Horn, founder of the Vienna Anthropocene Network; as a post-doc researcher, Dr. Stephanie Langer, whose expertise lies in methods of historical epistemology and textual analysis, will write her second book on this topic.
Nature has been profoundly transformed by humans on a global scale. The term therefore calls a redefinition of the relationship between humans and nature: to live in the Anthropocene involves a new form of being-in-the-world. Taking this new understanding of human being-in-the-world as our general framework, the project sets out to investigate the aesthetical and poetic implications of the Anthropocene. How can literature present and narrate this new mode of existence? Which literary forms are able to address this insight and represent the new understanding of nature? The project’s basic assumption is that such a poetics of the Anthropocene is above all a reflection on form: natural forms, but also literary form. The project’s corpus ranges from Döblin, Handke, Frisch and Sebald to the most recent work of Schrott, Ruoff, Jirgl, C. Enzensberger, Dath and Weiss, and will be supplemented with publications that appear over the course of the project. We consider how these texts address the question of form and the transformation in nature (specifically that of landscapes and organisms) and how this reflection plays out in formal experiments in literarary texts. Our methods are twofold:
(1) We reconstruct the scientific contexts, specifically in geology and biology, that inform the literary texts and provide their epistemic frameworks. To do so, we will examine the text’s production process and sources through archival research (Döblin, Sebald, Frisch, C. Enzensberger, possibly Handke) as well as interviews with living authors (Schrott, Ruoff, Jirgl, Dath, Weiss).
(2) We analyze the experiments in literary form – the play of genres, narrative modes, types of text, style etc. – that literary texts engage in with regard to the Anthropocene. On the basis of these elements of form, our goal is to elaborate a poetics of the Anthropocene. A comprehensive analysis of poetic form in the
Anthropocene has so far not been attempted. We also hope to provoke a lively scholarly debate on the aesthetic and poetic implications of this new epoch in the German speaking world. We hope to develop tools for a better understanding of the role of literature within the context of the Anthropocene by demonstrating how literature presents a medium for reflection on the relation between humans and nature in the Anthropocene.
The project will be directed by Prof. Dr. Eva Horn, founder of the Vienna Anthropocene Network; as a post-doc researcher, Dr. Stephanie Langer, whose expertise lies in methods of historical epistemology and textual analysis, will write her second book on this topic.
| Status | Finished |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 1/09/20 → 31/08/24 |