Spielarten der Ökokritik

By Laura Umlauf

Supervisor: Dr. Gesa Lüdecke

The growing awareness of an ever-increasing number of environmental problems caused by humans, and the urgent need for solutions, is reflected in the emergence of diverse environmental movements and ecological forms of artistic practice. In addition to ecological art, eco-film, and ecological theatre, literature, in particular, has offered a broad range of critical approaches for understanding the concept of nature in general, as well as climate change and other environmental problems more specifically. This is true for both fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry. These approaches can be broadly described as ecocriticism, a distinct field of literary criticism. My final project presents ecocriticism as a multifaceted approach for understanding contemporary environmental problems across three separate papers.

Introducing the topic from a diachronic perspective, the first essay examines interrelations between humans and the environment in literature, as well as the emergence of ecocriticism as an academic field. Already in ancient times, environmental problems were reflected in texts. One example of this would be select works by Plato, who wrote about the deforestation of Greek woodland to produce material for building ships. Many more instances of human–environment relationships can be found in literature dating from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Modern Age. This same essay also deals with the history of ecocriticism as a literary-scientific branch that deals with these types of texts.

Ecocriticism developed significantly in the US environmental movement and has become an increasingly international research field. In the second contribution, taking a more comparative perspective, US ecocriticism is compared to the German Ökokritik, in order to show the influence of different cultural-historical traditions and environmental discourses in the field. The essay takes a closer look at the reasons for the relatively late uptake of this new research paradigm in Germany. In both countries, many different subfields of ecocriticism can be observed. In the US, there is a focus on ecofeminism, queer ecology, post-colonialism, animal studies, and environmental justice, to name but a few. In Germany, one can observe that issues from cultural studies or systems theory are more likely to be discussed in the context of ecocriticism. Furthermore, in Germany, there is a growing interest in newly emerging ecological genres (e.g. eco-thriller) and writing modes in literature.

The last essay takes a closer look at the subfield of material ecocriticism, which offers new options to interpret—away from traditional paths—complex connections between nature and culture, nonhuman and human life, reality and language, as well as spirit and matter, in literature. The paper shows that material ecocriticism is based on an interdisciplinary approach that draws on various theories and methods; for example, the ideas of new materialism or Bruno Latour's actor-network theory. Influential theorists of this subfield include researchers from diverse disciplines, such as physicist Karen Barad, or the cultural and literary theorist Serenella Iovino.