Science in Fiction: A Brief Look at the Potential of Communicating Climate Change through the Novel

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Perspectives Issue 2019/4

Tabak explores the potential of novels for communicating about climate change.

„Du bist, was du isst“ – Dummes Gemüse und der Reiz des Neuen und Anderen

While English satire magazines mocked vegetarianism since the 1840s, the first German caricatures appeared some 30 years later. Early drawings often imagined that a vegetarian would gradually transform into a plant. Other recurring topics are the assumed correlation between (meatless) nutrition and (peaceful, fragile) physical appearance and character, as well as the debate over whether a meat-rich or a meat-free diet was better for human health. This is from the German version of “Satirical Glimpses of the Cultural History of Vegetarianism.” For the English-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Fleischloser Humor: Der frühe Vegetarismus im Zerrspiegel der Karikatur

Der Vegetarismus wird als alternatives Ernährungsmodell bis heute kontrovers diskutiert. Viele aktuell vorgebrachte Argumente für und wider eine vegetarische Lebensweise wurden schon im 19. Jahrhundert in den Medien verbreitet. Diese virtuelle Ausstellung beleuchtet die ersten Jahrzehnte der Debatte um fleischlose Ernährung im deutschsprachigen Kulturraum. Dabei wählt sie eine besondere Perspektive: Sie spiegelt die Ausdifferenzierung des Diskurses und die Entwicklung visueller Topoi rund um den Vegetarismus in Karikaturen und Satiren, die seinerzeit die Bewegung, Lebensphilosophie, Vereinsstrukturen und Ernährungsgewohnheiten verspottet haben. Außerdem gibt sie amüsante Einblicke in den damaligen Humor.

Klicken Sie hier, um mehr über diese Ausstellung zu erfahren. Diese virtuelle Ausstellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.

Evi Zemanek and Sophia Burgenmeister

About the author

Zemanek, Evi

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Evi Zemanek ist Professorin für Medienkulturwissenschaft an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, wo sie ab 2010 Germanistik und Intermedialität lehrte, nachdem sie in Komparatistik an der LMU München promoviert hatte. Ihre Forschungsinteressen liegen vor allem in den Bereichen Medienökologie, Intermedialität und Interkulturalität, Ecocriticism und crossmedialer (Umwelt-)Journalismus. Sie publizierte weitläufig zur Naturästhetik in diversen Medien, Ökotopien, Naturlyrik, und allgemeiner zur Geschichte ökologischen Denkens und zu Poetiken „ökologischer Genres“. Zuletzt schrieb sie über „nachhaltige Medienkulturen“ und konzipierte (zus. m. U. Kluwick) ein interdisziplinäres Kompendium (Nachhaltigkeit interdisziplinär. Konzepte, Diskurse, Praktiken, 2019). Derzeit stellt sie eine Monografie über Karikaturen fertig, welche Verflechtungen von Diskurs-, Medien- und Umweltgeschichte seit dem 19. Jahrhundert untersucht. Evi Zemanek ist Gründerin des DFG-Netzwerks Ethik und Ästhetik in literarischen Darstellungen ökologischer Transformationen, Mitglied des DFG-Networks Politiken der Idylle, des Upper Rhine Cluster for Sustainability Research und des Transatlantic Humboldt Network Environmental Humanities.

Burgenmeister, Sophia

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Sophia Burgenmeister lebt und promoviert in Freiburg im Breisgau. In ihrer Dissertation erforscht sie die Diskurs- und Mediengeschichte von Fleischkonsum und Vegetarismus. Weitere Forschungsinteressen liegen in den Bereichen Klimakommunikation, Gegenwartslyrik und Intermedialität. 2018 erschien ihr Buch „Der ‚Blick auf Beowulf‘ – Eine Spurensuche zwischen Medialität und Materialität bei Thomas Kling und Ute Langanky“. Zuvor studierte sie Philosophie und Neuere deutsche Literatur, Kultur, Medien an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg und der University of Nottingham und arbeitete als Lektorin für Philosophie, Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft.

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The Reverse of the Sublime: Dilemmas (and Resources) of the Anthropocene Garden

About this issue

Serenella Iovino uses the garden as a lens to analyze the impacts of old and new forms of aestheticizing nature on the geology of our planet.

Content

"Confessing Anthropocene"

Stefan Skrimshire considers the ethical question of how to communicate with future human societies in terms of long-term disposal of radioactive fuel. He proposes that the confessional form (as propagated by Saint Augustine and critiqued by Derrida) may become increasingly pertinent to activists, artists, and faith communities making sense of humanity’s ethical commitments in deep time.

Read more about "Confessing Anthropocene"

"Speculative Volcanology: Time, Becoming, and Violence in Encounters with Magma"

The authors put forward the idea of “speculative geology” to explain the violence inherent in volcanism, drawing on three volcanic episodes and the more recent unexpected striking of magma in Iceland’s Krafla volcanic caldera.

Read more about "Speculative Volcanology: Time, Becoming, and Violence in Encounters with Magma"

"Art, Trees, and the Enchantment of the Anthropocene: Caroline Wendling’s White Wood"

Considering Caroline Wendling’s living artwork White Wood (2014) in northeast Scotland, the author examines the relationship between deep time, ecology, and enchantment.

Read more about "Art, Trees, and the Enchantment of the Anthropocene: Caroline Wendling’s White Wood"

Das ökologische Auge: Landschaftsmalerei im Spiegel nachhaltiger Entwicklung

Sybille Heidenreich takes the reader on a journey through art history with an “ecological eye.” Looking at examples of Dürer, Monet, and Van Gogh, she offers insight into the emergence of present-day ecological crises and valuable food for thought on issues of sustainability.

Read more about Das ökologische Auge: Landschaftsmalerei im Spiegel nachhaltiger Entwicklung

Gathering Ecologies: Thinking Beyond Interactivity

Gathering Ecologies explores the ethical and political shift towards an ecological conception of the idea of interactivity. It examines the creative potential of differential relations through key concepts from the philosophies of A. N. Whitehead, Gilbert Simondon, and Michel Serres.

Read more about Gathering Ecologies: Thinking Beyond Interactivity

Sources & Further Reading in Ecocriticism

Source literature and further reading for Sabine Wilke’s virtual exhibition “Human-Nature Relations in German Literature”. This virtual exhibition is also available in German here.

Human-Nature Relations in German Literature: A Curated Stroll through a History of Entanglement

This virtual exhibition features, in English translation, short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? This virtual exhibition is also available in German here.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural and visual studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers. Most recently, Wilke was involved in a larger project about German colonialism and postcoloniality and the question of comparative colonialisms, especially how Germany related differently to Africa and the South Pacific. With assistance from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wilke is directing a transatlantic research network on the environmental humanities and is working on a new project on environmental criticism, in particular the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.

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Mountains, Glaciers, and Climate

In this chapter of her virtual exhibition, “Human-Nature Relations in German Literature,” Sabine Wilke examines mountains and glacial environments in German-language literary descriptions. Whereas the German Romantic poets still highlighted mountainous nature as deeply ambiguous, Goethe’s Faust tried to understand mountainous nature in its materiality through scientific studies. Modernism focuses on the more often destructive results of human-nature entanglements. For the German-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Human-Nature Relations in German Literature: A Curated Stroll through a History of Entanglement

This virtual exhibition features, in English translation, short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? This virtual exhibition is also available in German here.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural and visual studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers. Most recently, Wilke was involved in a larger project about German colonialism and postcoloniality and the question of comparative colonialisms, especially how Germany related differently to Africa and the South Pacific. With assistance from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Wilke is directing a transatlantic research network on the environmental humanities and is working on a new project on environmental criticism, in particular the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.