The human impact on the environment has become so large that a decade ago a new term was introduced: the Anthropocene. Considered to be a new era in Earth History, the Anthropocene confronts us with profound challenges in our relationship with the rest of the living world and radically altered environments of our own making. Light pollution and what Richard Louv has called “nature deficit disorder” are phenomena of the Anthropocene at the same time as notions of “wilderness” have resurfaced in numerous contemporary nature writings. In this course, we will study the representations of and observations regarding these phenomena as well as the (re)negotiations of concepts of “the wild” and suggestions for the future relationship between humans and the nonhuman environment in contemporary non-fiction and nature writing.
Those of us who are interested in experiencing the night sky without light pollution and who are also willing to leave behind our modern communication technologies for a few days, will set out for a three-day excursion to Gülpe, an ecological research retreat within a natural reserve that protects the dark night sky.

For the course, please purchase and read: Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods (2005); Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places (2007); Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk (2014).

For the excursion, please prepare also: Paul Bogard, The End of Night (2013), which we will discuss together with Last Child in the Woods and Macfarlane’s chapter 10, “Ridge” at the research retreat in Gülpe.
[Am 07. Oktober findet ein Vortreffen für alle an der Exkursion Interessierten in A06 2-212 um 14.00 Uhr statt. Die Exkursion ist für den Kurs nicht verpflichtend und auf 15 TeilnehmerInnen beschränkt.]