geology

Mountains, Glaciers, and Climate

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
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

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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.

Browse the exhibition

Exhibition Overview
Introduction
Transformation of Landscapes
Mountains, Glaciers, Climate
Forests and Deforestation
Pollution and Waste
Further Reading

Transformation of Landscapes

Transformation of Landscapes

In this chapter of her virtual exhibition “Human-Nature Relations in German Literature,” Sabine Wilke discusses texts that register transformations of landscapes or take a position on their causes. 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
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Show more
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.

Browse the exhibition

Exhibition Overview
Introduction
Transformation of Landscapes
Mountains, Glaciers, Climate
Forests and Deforestation
Pollution and Waste
Further Reading

Berge, Gletscher und Klima

Berge, Gletscher und Klima

In this chapter of the German-language version of her virtual exhibition, “Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur (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 English-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur: Ein kuratierter Spaziergang durch eine Geschichte der Verwicklungen

In dieser virtuellen Ausstellung werden kurze Auszüge deutschsprachiger Literatur vorgestellt, die die Verstrickung von Mensch und Natur adressieren. Ziel der Ausstellung ist es, zu zeigen, inwiefern Literatur einen wichtigen Beitrag zum Verständnis und Problematisieren der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und nicht-menschlicher Natur leisten kann. Welche Aspekte dieser Beziehung werden angesprochen, zu welchem Zeitpunkt in der Literaturgeschichte und wie werden diese lyrisch gestaltet? Diese virtuelle Austellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Show more
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.

Browse the exhibition

Überblick
Einführung in die Ausstellung
Landschaftsveränderungen
Berge, Gletscher und Klima
Wälder und Entwaldung
Umweltverschmutzung und Abfall
Weiterführende Literatur

Landschaftsveränderungen

Landschaftsveränderungen

In this chapter of the German-language version of her virtual exhibition “Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur (Human-Nature Relations in German Literature),” Sabine Wilke discusses texts that register transformations of landscapes or take a position on their causes. For the English-language version of this exhibition, click here.

Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur: Ein kuratierter Spaziergang durch eine Geschichte der Verwicklungen

In dieser virtuellen Ausstellung werden kurze Auszüge deutschsprachiger Literatur vorgestellt, die die Verstrickung von Mensch und Natur adressieren. Ziel der Ausstellung ist es, zu zeigen, inwiefern Literatur einen wichtigen Beitrag zum Verständnis und Problematisieren der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und nicht-menschlicher Natur leisten kann. Welche Aspekte dieser Beziehung werden angesprochen, zu welchem Zeitpunkt in der Literaturgeschichte und wie werden diese lyrisch gestaltet? Diese virtuelle Austellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.

Sabine Wilke

About the author

Wilke, Sabine
Wilke, Sabine

University of Washington, USA

Show more
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.

Browse the exhibition

Überblick
Einführung in die Ausstellung
Landschaftsveränderungen
Berge, Gletscher und Klima
Wälder und Entwaldung
Umweltverschmutzung und Abfall
Weiterführende Literatur

“Landscape and Inscription”

In this special issue on Multispecies Studies, Cary Wolfe and Maria Whiteman discuss the changing notions of landscape and nature at work in the video installation Mountain Pine Beetle and explores some of the forces that eventuated in the devastated landscapes of the Rocky Mountain West brought on by the infestation of the mountain pine beetle beginning in the early 2000s—an infestation caused, in no small part, by what some scientists have called a perfect storm of circumstances created by global warming.

Beyond the Exhibition

Beyond the Exhibition

What is Particular about Munich’s Environment?

Ecopolis München

Ecopolis München: Environmental Histories of a City is an exhibition on Munich’s environmental histories and showcases the final projects of students in the Environmental Studies Certificate Program of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

About the author

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Gora (ed.), L. Sasha

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Browse the exhibition

Exhibition Overview
About the Exhibition
Sound Trail
Fröttmaninger Müllberg
Munich and the Isar
Democratic Green
Stone-Rich
Munich from Below
Beyond the Exhibition
Ecopolis Catalogue
Further Reading
The Environment & Society Portal is a project of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, an institute founded in 2009 as a joint initiative of LMU Munich and the Deutsches Museum. Read more about the Portal in English and in German.