The Umwelt Center for Germanic Studies & Environmental Humanities invites participants from across the Arts and Sciences to a reading group exploring topics and approaches in the environmental humanities. Our theme for this academic year will be Decomposition: Processes of Decay, Collapse, and Reorganization. Meetings will take place monthly on Fridays 12:30-1:30, and a vegan-friendly lunch will be provided.
As the year progresses, we hope that participants will suggest readings, so that our conversations reflect the diverse approaches to the environmental humanities being taken at Ohio State.
Meetings will take place on
- October 18 (excerpts from Judith Schalansky’s An Inventory of Losses (Verzeichnis einiger Verluste)
- November 22 (Eva Horn's "Challenges for an Aesthetics of the Anthropocene")
- January 24
- February 21
- March 21
- April 11
Current Announcement:
The Umwelt Center for Germanic Studies & Environmental Humanities will host an environmental humanities reading group on Friday, February 21, 12:30-1:30pm. The theme for the year is Decomposition: Processes of Decay, Collapse, and Reorganization, and this month, we will read Caitlin DeSilvey’s “Observed Decay: Telling Stories with Mutable Things.”
The meeting will take place in Hagerty Hall 488 and will include a vegan-friendly lunch. Graduate students and faculty from across the Arts and Sciences are welcome to participate! Please RSVP by noon on Monday, February 17 to Katra Byram (byram.4@osu.edu).
Abstract: The degradation of cultural artefacts is usually understood in a purely negative vein: the erosion of physical integrity is associated with a parallel loss of cultural information. This article asks if it is possible to adopt an interpretive approach in which entropic processes of decomposition and decay, though implicated in the destruction of cultural memory traces on one register, contribute to the recovery of memory on another register. The article tracks the entanglement of cultural and natural histories through the residual material culture of a derelict homestead in Montana. In conclusion, the article suggests that deposits of degraded material, though inappropriate for recovery in conventional conservation strategies, may be understood through the application of a collaborative interpretive ethic, allowing other-thanhuman agencies to participate in the telling of stories about particular places.
Questions? Please contact Katra Byram (byram.4@osu.edu).