Pfeifer, Lena
Congratulations on passing the oral examination
on 11 July 2024
Dissertation topic:
"Anthropocene Affordances: Scale, Narrative Form, and Representations of the Human in Anthropocene Narratives."
Doctoral scholarship
of the Cusanuswerk 1.2.2020 to 31.7.2023
Contact address at the University of Würzburg:
Julius-Maximilians-Universität
Neuphilologisches Institut - Chair of American English and American Literature and Culture
Am Hubland
97070 Würzburg
First supervisor: Prof Dr Catrin Gersdorf
Second supervisor:
Prof. Dr Hannes Bergthaller (National Chung Hsing University)
Class in the graduate school: "Environmental Humanities"
Doctorate in the Graduate School from WS 2019/2020.
Abstract:
The Anthropocene describes a new geological epoch in which the degree of human intervention with the geophysical dynamics of the Earth system has come to resemble that of a geological force. From a cultural perspective, the Anthropocene also marks a profound rupture with conventional forms of narrating human existence and, essentially, with what it means to be human. This dissertation project investigates the narrative forms and techniques employed in a selection of Anthropocene narratives (both fictional and nonfictional) written between 2010 and 2020 to critically engage the new role of the human in the Anthropocene. Borrowing from New Formalism, I engage the term Anthropocene Affordances to discern which forms of critical reflection are facilitated by, and emerge from, the Anthropocene as a critical concept.
