Intern
Graduiertenschule für die Geisteswissenschaften

Pfeifer, Lena

Dissertationsthema:
"Anthropocene Affordances: Scale, Narrative Form, and Representations of the Human in Anthropocene Narratives."

Promotionsstipendium
des Cusanuswerks 1.2.2020 bis 31.7.2023

Kontaktadresse an der Universität Würzburg:
Julius-Maximilians-Universität
Neuphilologisches Institut - Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik
Am Hubland
97070 Würzburg

E-Mail an Frau Pfeifer

Erstbetreuerin: Frau Prof. Dr. Catrin Gersdorf

Zweitbetreuende: 

Frau Prof. Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber

Prof. Dr. Hannes Bergthaller (National Chung Hsing University)

Klasse in der Graduiertenschule:  "Environmental Humanities"

Promotion in der Graduiertenschule ab 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.