Adalbert Stifter's alternative anthropocene

reimagining social nature in brigitta and abdias

Alexander Phillips

pp. 65-85

in: Caroline Schaumann (ed), German ecocriticism in the anthropocene, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter investigates the production of nature in two novellas from Adalbert Stifter's Studien: Brigitta and Abdias. I argue that both texts imagine an alternative Anthropocene reality that is presented as a more ethical parallel to nineteenth-century environmental degradation. The pastoralist vision in Brigitta expresses Stifter's vision of an alternative Anthropocene most directly, whereas Abdias provides a more negative contrast. This chapter thus situates the moral and ethical reflections in Stifter's narratives within the realities of the social production of nature that the texts portray, and demonstrates how social nature serves a key role in casting the texts' didactic agendas in an ironic and critical light.

Cited authors

Stifter Adalbert