Hannes Bergthaller

The Anthropocene is a concept which challenges the foundations of humanities scholarship as it is traditionally understood. It calls not only for closer engagement with the natural sciences but also for a synthetic approach bringing together insights from the various subdisciplines in the humanities and social sciences which have addressed themselves to ecological questions in the past. This book is an introduction to, and structured survey of, the attempts that have been made to take the measure of the Anthropocene, and explores some of the paradigmatic problems which it raises. The difficulties of an introduction to the Anthropocene lie not only in the disciplinary breadth of the subject, but also in the rapid pace at which the surrounding debates have been, and still are, unfolding. This introduction proposes a conceptual map which, however provisionally, charts these ongoing discussions across a variety of scientific and humanistic disciplines.This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in the environmental humanities, particularly in literary and cultural studies, history, philosophy, and environmental studies.

The Anthropocene is a concept which challenges the foundations of humanities scholarship as it is traditionally understood. It calls not only for closer engagement with the natural sciences but also for a synthetic approach bringing together insights from the various subdisciplines in the humanities and social sciences which have addressed themselves to ecological questions in the past. This book is an introduction to, and structured survey of, the attempts that have been made to take the measure of the Anthropocene, and explores some of the paradigmatic problems which it raises. The difficulties of an introduction to the Anthropocene lie not only in the disciplinary breadth of the subject, but also in the rapid pace at which the surrounding debates have been, and still are, unfolding. This introduction proposes a conceptual map which, however provisionally, charts these ongoing discussions across a variety of scientific and humanistic disciplines.This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in the environmental humanities, particularly in literary and cultural studies, history, philosophy, and environmental studies.

Mit dem Aufstieg der modernen Umweltbewegung avancierte die OEkologie von einer biologischen Disziplin zum gesellschaftspolitischen Schlagwort. Begriffe wie "naturliches Gleichgewicht" und "Nahrungskette" wurden umgepragt zu absoluten Metaphern im Sinne Hans Blumenbergs: Sie dienen seitdem nicht mehr nur als Kurzformeln fur wissenschaftlich beschreibbare Sachverhalte, sondern als Modelle ethischen Handelns. In den USA vollzog sich diese semantische Umbesetzung parallel zum Kalten Krieg, und sie mobilisierte das eng mit dem Naturbegriff verknupfte Metaphern- und Erzahlrepertoire der liberalen Gesellschaftslehre, um eine virulente Legitimationskrise zu bewaltigen. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung stehen Texte, die besonders nachhaltigen Einfluss auf diese Entwicklung gehabt haben: Aldo Leopolds A Sand County Almanach (1949), Rachel Carsons Silent Spring (1962), die Essays von Gary Snyder sowie Edward Abbeys Desert Solitaire (1968). Dabei geht es nicht nur um die Rekonstruktion ihrer kulturgeschichtlichen Kontexte, sondern auch um die Frage, welche Bedeutung den von ihnen entworfenen Positionen heute noch zukommen kann.