230504 Concepts and Representations of Nature in the Americas. Perspectives from Literature and History (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

In cultures and societies as well as literatures and arts throughout the Americas, concepts and representations of nature have undergone considerable change over the past centuries. Until the early modern period, the order of nature appeared as a closed 'cosmos'; since the colonial expansion of Europe at the latest, however, the occidental idea of an open 'universe' emerged, which was conceived as a potentially unlimited space of extension and which correlated with the idea of a passive nature viewed as a place of classificatory inscriptions and economic exploitation carried out by the European colonizers. In the context of the critique of the Western opposition of nature and culture (civilización and barbarie) current debates of the Anthropocene have brought about a new paradigm of thinking about nature in the Americas: On the one hand, the term now decidedly includes the cosmovisions of indigenous peoples and communities, which emphasize the interaction of different human and nonhuman actors (humans, animals, plants, deities e.a.); on the other hand, it focuses primarily on the dangers inherent in the human impact on climate and the environment. Accordingly, nature is increasingly coming to be viewed as an environmental geophysical and terrestrial biosystem ('Earth'), characterized by its 'planetary boundaries' as well as its own spatiality and temporality.
The seminar will explore the different conceptualizations and forms of representation of nature in the Americas in different historical contexts. Drawing on some relevant theoretical approaches, we will consider texts and materials belonging to the fields of climate theory, natural history, landscape aesthetics, the discussion of natural disasters; Andean, Amerindian and other indigenous and Afro-American cosmovisions, (neo-)extractivism, and broader socio-environmental crises and agencies related to the Anthropocene.