Periodic Reporting for period 1 - The Human Imprint (The Human Imprint: Western and Chinese Anthropocene Fictions)
Reporting period: 2018-08-06 to 2020-08-05
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?
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?
"During my project I concentrated on two aspects, preparedness novels and ""hard"" science fiction.
PREPAREDNESS NOVELS: As the era of globalization and comfort ends, preparedness novels embrace humanity’s dystopian future and leap at the chance for societal rejuvenation on more localized terms. The three textual case studies explored here put forward a value system derived from the lives of the pioneers and settlers. The frontier, a classic trope of American mythology, is reimagined as the Neo-Frontier, a time-and-space continuum located at the porous divide between civilization and wilderness. While this trope provides an antidote against consumer culture’s perceived rootlessness and effeminacy, it also legitimizes problematic attitudes, including racism, sexism and a penchant for top-down hierarchies. By regressing to traditional models, the white man avoids succumbing to the excesses of savagery, for example cannibalism, and places himself outside of historic time.
I submitted my article ""The Neo-Frontier in Contemporary Preparedness Novels"" to the Journal of American Studies in 3. May 2019 - in month 9 of my fellowship (according to my original plan, this Milestone was planned for month 11). As expected, the article was returned with major revisions, then eventually resubmitted and accepted.
HARD SCIENCE FICTION: Once the surface of planet Earth becomes inhabitable, space migration no longer represents colonial expansion, but becomes a matter of survival. Two contemporary science fiction texts put forward scenarios of mankind’s departure from its cradle, lest it should face extinction: Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves (2015) and Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past-Trilogy (地球往事), comprised by The Three-Body Problem (三体, 2008), The Dark Forest (黑暗森林, 2008) and Death’s End (死神永生, 2010). Exploring the possibility of moving human life into space stations, they put into question the earth-bound condition of biological life. Such radical habitat change, it turns out, is possible, though accompanied by a transformation of human ethics. At the heart of my analysis lie Liu’s and Stephenson’s tableaus of humanity’s future, where the survival of our species can only be afforded by painful decisions. The implied ethics are, as I will argue, informed by modern pragmatic philosophy. My research questions are: how does Liu’s and Stephenson’s future inscribe itself in behavioural codes? What anthropology is put forward? In what way are such scenarios a description of our present?
I submitted my article ""Leaving Gaia Behind: The Ethics of Space Migration in Cixin Liu’s and Neil Stephenson’s Science Fiction"" to World Literature Studies on 2. July 2020 - two months later than planned in my timeline. Gladly, the article was accepted straight away. It will appear in the next issue this year."
PREPAREDNESS NOVELS: As the era of globalization and comfort ends, preparedness novels embrace humanity’s dystopian future and leap at the chance for societal rejuvenation on more localized terms. The three textual case studies explored here put forward a value system derived from the lives of the pioneers and settlers. The frontier, a classic trope of American mythology, is reimagined as the Neo-Frontier, a time-and-space continuum located at the porous divide between civilization and wilderness. While this trope provides an antidote against consumer culture’s perceived rootlessness and effeminacy, it also legitimizes problematic attitudes, including racism, sexism and a penchant for top-down hierarchies. By regressing to traditional models, the white man avoids succumbing to the excesses of savagery, for example cannibalism, and places himself outside of historic time.
I submitted my article ""The Neo-Frontier in Contemporary Preparedness Novels"" to the Journal of American Studies in 3. May 2019 - in month 9 of my fellowship (according to my original plan, this Milestone was planned for month 11). As expected, the article was returned with major revisions, then eventually resubmitted and accepted.
HARD SCIENCE FICTION: Once the surface of planet Earth becomes inhabitable, space migration no longer represents colonial expansion, but becomes a matter of survival. Two contemporary science fiction texts put forward scenarios of mankind’s departure from its cradle, lest it should face extinction: Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves (2015) and Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past-Trilogy (地球往事), comprised by The Three-Body Problem (三体, 2008), The Dark Forest (黑暗森林, 2008) and Death’s End (死神永生, 2010). Exploring the possibility of moving human life into space stations, they put into question the earth-bound condition of biological life. Such radical habitat change, it turns out, is possible, though accompanied by a transformation of human ethics. At the heart of my analysis lie Liu’s and Stephenson’s tableaus of humanity’s future, where the survival of our species can only be afforded by painful decisions. The implied ethics are, as I will argue, informed by modern pragmatic philosophy. My research questions are: how does Liu’s and Stephenson’s future inscribe itself in behavioural codes? What anthropology is put forward? In what way are such scenarios a description of our present?
I submitted my article ""Leaving Gaia Behind: The Ethics of Space Migration in Cixin Liu’s and Neil Stephenson’s Science Fiction"" to World Literature Studies on 2. July 2020 - two months later than planned in my timeline. Gladly, the article was accepted straight away. It will appear in the next issue this year."
"While research usually emphasises the liberating aspects of speculative fiction, I have emphasised the oppressing quality of certain imaginaries, e.g. the return to pre-industrial pioneer culture and the leap forward into a technocratic and centralised future. I hope to raise awareness of those aspects of pop culture that are entertaining, but come with a caveat: they prepare us for a radical overhaul of our livelihoods. Moreover, I challenge the notion that such oppression origins primarily in occidental culture. Certain strands of Chinese antiquity also promote the ruthless exploitation of human livelihoods and seek to dominate nature rather promoting a coexistence of nature and culture.
DISSEMINATION: Some Dissemination and Communication activities, e.g. my exhibition/reading event (originally planned for May 2020), had to be cancelled owing to the Covid19-crisis. Sadly, I learned that this event cannot be rescheduled. Other impacts on my research included two rescheduled conferences: 1. ""Translating the Present: Science Fiction and our Futures"" at IFK Vienna - originally 4.5.2020 now 4.12.2020 where I will present my paper ""Agencies of Waste: Chinese SF and the Postcolonial Imaginary."" 2. ""Androids ILF: Erotic Encounters with Machines"" at Tagung der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik, Palermo - originally 2.8.2020 now August 2021. My participation at the 15th International Conference on Waste Management and Technology (2020 Global Waste Forum, 21-24 March 2020) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, also fell victim of the pandemic.
During the spring/summer semester 2019 and fall/winter semester 2019/2020, I greatly enjoyed teaching two courses in rhetoric and creative writing. As a matter of course, amid Fridays for Future movement, there was plenty of room for discussion that directly related to my expertise. Furthermore, Professor Eva Horn gave me the opportunity to present my research in front of a large audience of BA students on 3 June 2020.
No website has been developed for the project."
DISSEMINATION: Some Dissemination and Communication activities, e.g. my exhibition/reading event (originally planned for May 2020), had to be cancelled owing to the Covid19-crisis. Sadly, I learned that this event cannot be rescheduled. Other impacts on my research included two rescheduled conferences: 1. ""Translating the Present: Science Fiction and our Futures"" at IFK Vienna - originally 4.5.2020 now 4.12.2020 where I will present my paper ""Agencies of Waste: Chinese SF and the Postcolonial Imaginary."" 2. ""Androids ILF: Erotic Encounters with Machines"" at Tagung der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik, Palermo - originally 2.8.2020 now August 2021. My participation at the 15th International Conference on Waste Management and Technology (2020 Global Waste Forum, 21-24 March 2020) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, also fell victim of the pandemic.
During the spring/summer semester 2019 and fall/winter semester 2019/2020, I greatly enjoyed teaching two courses in rhetoric and creative writing. As a matter of course, amid Fridays for Future movement, there was plenty of room for discussion that directly related to my expertise. Furthermore, Professor Eva Horn gave me the opportunity to present my research in front of a large audience of BA students on 3 June 2020.
No website has been developed for the project."