Trinity University Digital Commons @ Trinity Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research Modern Languages and Literatures Department 2017 Introduction to German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene Caroline Schaumann Heather I. Sullivan Trinity University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/mll_faculty Part of the Modern Languages Commons Repository Citation Schaumann, C., & Sullivan, H. I. (2017). Introduction. In C. Schaumann & H. I. Sullivan (Eds.), German ecocriticism in the anthropocene (pp. 7-21). Palgrave Macmillan. This Contribution to Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Modern Languages and Literatures Department at Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment focuses on new research in the Environmental Humanities, particularly work with a rhetorical or lit­ erary <limension. Books in this series explore how ideas of nature and Caroline Schaumann • Heather I. Sullivan environmental concernsare expressed in different cultural contexts and at Editors <lifferent historical moments. They investigate how cultural assumptions and practices, as well as social structures and institutions, shape concep­ tions of nature, the natural, species boundaries, uses of plants, animals and natural resources, the human body in its environmental <limensions, German Ecocriticism' environmental health and illness, and relations between nature and tech­ nology. In turn, the series malces visible how concepts of nature and forms of environmentalist thought and representation arise fromthe confluence in the Anthropocene of a community's ecological and social con<litionswith its cultural assump­ tions, perceptions, and institutions. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14818 pal grave macmillan lillillillllllllllillll'liflil'!!!A!!ldi&i4££.; I g:_ $44$1 i44M444244¥ 6 U.K. HEISE than terms such as Heimat, Landschaft, wilderness, or sense or place, the Anthropocene may be well-suited to provide a platform on which shared ecological risks as well as cultural differences can be discussed. Introduction NOTE l. This does not mean, obviously, that German environmental writers and academics have not in some cases been extremely active in poli­ Caroline Schaumann and Heather I. Sullivan tics: the novelist and essayist Carl Amery, for example, was also a founding member of the Green Party. But it does mean that litera­ ture and scholarship need not function as an alternate sphere of poli­ tics in the absence of a space for environmental discussion in political institutions, as they sometimes have in the United States. WoRI<S CITED How do we approach, read, discuss, and teach German literature in light of the transnational and global environmental problems and crises caused Buch, Hans Christoph. "Einleitung." Tintenfisch: Thema Natur, Oder: Warum ein by human activities? In what way does the current geological era of the Gesprach Uber Baume heute kein Verbrechen mehr ist, edited by Hans Christoph Anthropocene marked by traceable human impact across the globe lead us Buch, Wagenbach,1977, pp. 7-12. to reflect on the role and interconnectedness of human and non-human Emmerich, Wolfgang. "Kein GespriichUber Baume: Naturlyrik unterm Faschismus forces? Since human activities and human cultures have caused so many im Exil." 1933-1945, uud Exilliteratur edited by Wulf Koepke and Michael of the current ecological problems, how can scholars address broad-scale Winkler, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschafi:, 1989, pp. 396-423. interdisciplinary problems with attention to both cultural and scientific Goodbody, Axel. "Literarur und 6kologie: Zur Ein:filhrung." Literatur und knowledge? What is the role of the humanities in this inextricably nature­ Oko/.ogie, edited by Axel Goodbody, Rodopi, 1998, pp. 11-40. Hall, Stuart. "The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis in the Humanities." culture mix of problems? Many recent works in American and Anglophone October, volume 53, 1990, pp. 11-23. literature attempt to answer such questions, yet there is still much to be Heise, Ursula K Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered done in other language and cultural traditions, especially when consider­ Species. U of Chicago P, 2016. ing such broad-scale and shared challenges. We were motivated by such ---. Sense ofPlace and Sense ofPlanet: The EnPironmental Imagination of the a need to gather together a collection of current work reflecting environ­ Global. Oxford UP, 2008. mental attention in both canonical and non-canonical German-language Korner, Stefan. "Kontinuum und Bruch: Die Transformation des naturschiitzeri­ texts and films. schen Aufgabenverstandnisses nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg." Naturschutz und Nationalsozialismus, edited by Joachim Radkau and Frank Uekotter, Campus, 2003, pp. 405-34. Linse, Ulrich. Okopax und Anarchie: Eine Geschichte der Okologischen Bewegungen C. Schaumann (G) in Deutsch/and. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986. Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA "Narrative Scholarship: Storytelling in Ecocriti.cism." Nineteen Position Papers from the 1995 Western Literature AssociationMeeting Vancouver, BC, 11-14 H.I. Sullivan October 1995. http://www.asle.org/wp-content/uploads/ASLE_Primer_ Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA NarrativeScholarship.pdf. ©The Author(s) 2017 7 C. Schaumann, H.I. Sullivan (eds.), German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene, Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment, DOI 10.1057 /978-1-137-54222-9_2 A& UQiiiiRMM 11!¥ gvmau;;;;; ;;a¥!� 8 C. SCHAUMANN AND H.I. SULLIVAN INTRODUCTION 9 Addressing the growing need for environmental awareness in an inter­ about the changing ecological circumstances in the walce of human indus­ nationalhumanities curriculum, our book is one of the first to complement trial and agricultural activities, ecocriticism has also directed its attenrion ecocritical analyses emerging from North American and British studies to such topics as global pollution, food studies, the changing climate, and with a specifically German studies perspective. It is our goal to provide, the sixth great extinctionbrought about by human activity (Kolbert). The on the one hand, ecocriticalmodels for German studies and, on the other, expanding of the environmental humanities and ecocriticism specifically an introduction to environmental issues in German literature and film for toward national, transnational, and even "planetary" perspectives dem­ a broader audience. Thus, our anthology serves scholars and students in onstrates the need for collaborative scholarship across the continents that German studies and those interested in ecocriticism and the environmen­ looks both locally and globally at diverse cultures and texts from an eco­ tal humanities, as well as readers seeking a more internationaland transna­ logicalperspective.1 The essays in German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene tional understanding of how culture and literature engage contemporary contribute to this larger project by not only highlighting various perspec­ political, environmental, and economic issues. By offering a critical inves­ tives from German-speaking authors and texts but also situating these tigationinto cultural performances of"nature" in German-speaking litera­ views in reference to the existing English and Anglophone scholarship as ture and film from the late eighteenth century into the present, it is our well as other traditions. hope that German Ecocriticism will help establish a specifically German­ In order to provide a frame for the broad-ranging topics and authors focused scholarship not only in examining the relationship between text included in the volume, we contextualize the texts and analyses in terms of and physical environment but also in producing a volume that connects to the Anthropocene. Current geo-physical research and stratigraphicstudies other language and culture traditions in the field. indicate that we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, Ecocriticism can generally be defined as the study of texts with atten­ when human impact has left industrial traces across the surfu.ce of the tion to the physical environment. Ecocriticism thus investigates the cul­ entire planet. Debates in 2016 will decide if scientists will claim that the tural and physical interactions of human beings and other species in-and Holocene, the geological era that began after the last Ice Age, is over, with-their environments. It thereby contributes critical and historical eclipsed by the Anthropocene. Regardless of these decisions, the term of insights for current global debates on such broad-rangingtopics as climate the Anthropocene as the era of (large-scale) human impact has gained change, pollution, energy, urban development, the possible roles of tech­ such currency culturally that it has become widely accepted across many nology for ecology, and environmental justice. Ecocriticism emerged out disciplines. Among those who agree on the name and concept, the specific of literary scholarship in the Western United States with an early focus on timeframeof the Anthropocene nevertheless remains contested. It was first "nature writing," "wilderness," environmental activism combining schol­ formulated by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen (atmospheric chemistry) and arship and political