The Human Imprint · Western and Chinese Anthropocene Fictions
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-08-06 → 2020-08-05
- EU contribution
- €166,157
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-RI
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The Human Imprint: Western and Chinese Anthropocene Fictions
In recent years, the profound changes in our relationship with the biosphere influence not only our lives as consumers, but also the plots of the stories we read. As modern societies are starting to feel the first effects of climate change, rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide emissions and the fouling of waterways, novels have become a key medium in the discussion of the real, anticipated and imaginary implications of our life in the ‘Anthropocene’. In this new geological era, human activity begins to dominate the climate and the environment. While European Romanticism and Chinese classical poetry celebrate the individual’s retreat from urban civilisation into an unspoilt landscape, contemporary authors have lost faith in the neat dichotomy of nature and culture. In the Anthropocene, the sublime horizon of nature no longer offers refuge from human agency, now the main force shaping the face of the earth. Prose narratives stand at the forefront of readdressing this dichotomy in innovative ways; after all, they link protagonists’ individual lives with their environments and outline a new subjectivity that redefines its relation to the world. Although many Anthropocene fictions reference hard science, they often focus on side-effects of the environmental crisis, such as air pollution or species loss, rather than on large-scale phenomena like climate change. Do these texts fail to address scientific concerns? Or is there a metaphorical and figurative dimension to such narratives (e.g. by presenting isolated weather patterns as a pars pro toto for climate) necessary to make abstract facts available to human experience and subjectivity?
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This action addresses a new chapter in ecocriticism: the advent of the ‘Anthropocene’ in contemporary literature. In recent years, the profound changes in our relationship with the biosphere influence not only our lives as consumers, but also the plots of the stories we read. As modern societies are starting to feel the first effects of climate change, rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide emissions and the fouling of waterways, novels have become a key medium in the discussion of the real, anticipated and imaginary implications of our life in the ‘Anthropocene’. As a reflection on socio-political and ecological realities of our lives, literature projects various ways how life in this new reality can be imagined, e.g. as the break-down of social norms or as the wake-up call to a post-human future. Adam Traxler’s notion of ‘Anthropocene fictions’ will be extended to include Chinese-language texts. Just like the industrialised countries of Europe and North America, the Greater China Region is struggling to come to terms with its experience of climate change and resource depletion, and, at the same time, a growing sense of environmental guilt. Despite striking similarities in how these texts dramatize dystopian landscapes, cultural heritage does play a role in how the future of humanity is imagined. Surprisingly, these differences are not necessarily related to conventional concepts of China and ‘the West’. On the most general level, this action will allow researchers and the wider public to understand how the environmental crisis is experienced in different regions around the globe.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT WIEN · WienCoordinatorAustria
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/797229
- https://www.univie.ac.at/germanistik/projekt/anthropocene-world-literature/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union