German-Language Nature Writing from Eighteenth Century to the Present: Controversies, Positions, Perspectives

Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Is There a German-Language Nature Writing? Broken Traditions and Transnational References
	1 On the Tradition of German-Language Nature Writing—Forays and Theses
	2 English and American Genre Definitions
	3 The New Nature Writing Debate—Environmental Crisis and the Construction of Wilderness
	4 Previous Determinations of German-Language Nature Writing, the Nature Essay, and Kritisches Naturschreiben
		4.1 Opening, Expanding, and Rejecting Genre Limitations
		4.2 Working on Language and a “Language of Resonance”
		4.3 Emotional Work, the Return of Awe, and the Ethical Dimension
		4.4 Energy of Protest and Kritisches Naturschreiben
	5 Further Thematic Fields of a German-Language Nature Writing
		5.1 Differentiation Between Aesthetic and Utilitarian Concepts of Nature
		5.2 Agentive Nature and Approaches of a Nonanthropocentric View
		5.3 Natural History and Taxonomy vs. Holistic Nature Concept
		5.4 Natural History, Literature, and Popular Science
		5.5 “Sense of Place,” but without “Heimat”
		5.6 Proliferating Ruderal Flora, or: Constructions of Modern Wilderness in Industrial Wastelands
	6 Conclusion and Outlook
	References
Barthold Heinrich Brockes and Nature Writing
	1 Varieties of the Term “Nature Writing”
	2 Brockes’ “Twenty-Third Piece” in The Patriot (8th June 1724)
	3 In Praise of Smelling: Brockes’ Earthly Pleasure in God
	4 Brockes and Nature Writing: Affinities and Differences
	References
Bringing Nature to Language: Novalis’ Novices of Sais
	1 Introduction: Five Concepts of “Nature”
	2 Romanticism’s Critique of the Culture of Rationality
	3 Novalis’ The Novices of Sais: Form of the Text and Motif of Alienation from Nature
		3.1 The “ciphered writing” of Nature and Its Interpretations
		3.2 Natural Language of the Cosmogonies
		3.3 Drawing Near to Nature Inwardly
		3.4 Romanticism and Closeness to Nature: Poetry and the Fairy Tale
		3.5 “Love and lust” as the “innermost life of nature”
	4 Conclusion
	References
Nature Writing in Transcendental Perspective: Friedrich Hölderlin and Henry David Thoreau
	1 The Transcendental Approach in the Context of Cultural Ecology
	2 Hölderlin and Thoreau: Poetological Considerations
	3 Thoreau’s Walden
	4 Hölderlin’s “Rhine” Hymn
	5 Conclusion
	References
Humboldtian Writing for the Anthropocene
	1 A Nature Writer?
	2 The Nature Writing Tradition and Its Challenges
	3 Tropical Natures, Cultural Legacies, Enlightenment Science
	4 The Local and the Global
	5 The Geography of Plants and Humboldtian Writing
	References
Fluid “Heimat”: Water and Nature Writing in Theodor Fontane’s Ramblings through Mark Brandenburg
	1 Introduction
	2 Writing the Mark—Writing Water
		2.1 Brandenburg as “Heimat”
		2.2 Wanderungen as a Hydrography of Mark Brandenburg
		2.3 Water Organizes the Walks
		2.4 Water Narrates the Wanderungen
	3 “Buckow”: Fluid “Heimat”
	4 Nature Writing in the Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg
	References
Water, Clouds, Rocks: Nonhuman Temporalities and Adalbert Stifter’s Poetics of Nature
	1 Metaphors
	2 Forest
	3 Water
	4 Rocks
	References
From Brehms Tierleben to “A Report to an Academy”: Franz Kafka’s Animal Story Read as a Critical Commentary on Writing About Nature
	1 “A Report to an Academy”
		1.1 Comments on Content and Form
		1.2 Reception History
	2 Brehms Tierleben
	3 “A Report to an Academy” in Dialogue with Brehms Tierleben
		3.1 Change of Perspective
		3.2 Colonialist Contexts
		3.3 Autobiographical Memory as Anthropological Difference
	4 Conclusion
	References
Roses, Figs, and Gardens in Gertrud Kolmar’s and Ilse Langner’s Writings
	1 Basics of Nature Writing
	2 Roses and the Garden in Gertrud Kolmar’s Writings
	3 Ilse Langner’s Garden on the Island of Ibiza
	4 Displacements of Regard
	References
Wilhelm Lehmann: Nature Writing as a Behavioural Strategy
	1 Self-Distancing as Self-Certainty
	2 Lessons in Resonance as Self-Certainty
	3 Bucolic Diary
	4 Wilhelm Lehmann as a Nature Writer
	References
On the Natural History of Nature Writing: Linnaeus’ Followers
	1 The Tradition of Natural History
	2 Natural Historians Out on Field Trip: Letters—Travelogues—Diaries
	3 Entomological Natural History as Nature Writing
		3.1 Jean-Henri Fabre’s Insect Life: Souvenirs of a Naturalist
		3.2 Ernst Jünger’s Passion for Beetles
		3.3 Horst Stern’s Spider Trapezes
	References
The Representation of Alaska in Peter Handke’s Slow Homecoming (1979) through the Lens of Nature Writing
	1 German Nature Writing Against the Background of Anglo-American Traditions
	2 Slow Homecoming as Nature Writing
	3 Sigel Index
	References
Terrain-Texts: Thinking Nature Writing in the Anthropocene with Esther Kinsky, Timothy Morton and Bruno Latour
	1 Nature Writing after the End of Nature
	2 Ecomimesis: Ambient Poetics and Dark Ecology
	3 “Disturbed Lands”: Where Nature and Culture Have Never Been Separate
	4 Relations of Text and Terrain
	5 Relational Ecomimesis
	6 Outlook: Multiplication of Natures and Cultures
	References
German Nature Writing: Notes on the German Tradition of the Popular Nature Book and on the Phenomenon of ‘Peter Wohlleben’
	1 Writing about Nature: A Gap in Germanophone German Studies?
	2 The Popular Nature Book between Science and Belles Lettres
	3 The Phenomenon of Peter Wohlleben: The Hidden Life of Trees
	4 Conclusion
	References
From Both Sides Now: Nature Writing at Literary Festivals
	1 Literary Festivals: Part and Mirror of the Book Market
	2 Nature Writing Between Science and Art
	3 The New Popularity of Nature Writing: Why Now?
	References
Das Zwitschern der Vögel im: (nichtnationalen) Wald
	1 Ausgezwitschert: Vogel Zwei (Dronte)
	2 Der Vogel im Bild: “Malen nach der Natur”
	3 Brauchen wir eine Vogelmaschine?
	4 Natur-Schreiben: Ergebnisse
	References