Aesthetic Form in the Anthropocene: The Epic

Thursday Colloquium

#Thursday Colloquium with Eva Horn

The term “Anthropocene” expresses the awareness that we live on a planet that has been profoundly altered by humans. The question is how this awareness can be processed and reflected upon aesthetically. The assumption is that this cannot be done by simply addressing the symptoms of the crisis (climate change, species loss, and ecological disasters), but must primarily take the form of works of art that adequately capture the dimensions of this crisis. Eva Horn’s lecture will first address some of the difficulties facing an aesthetics of the Anthropocene. One of these is the question of the scale on which the transformation of the planet is taking place. One genre that has been particularly associated with “scale” is the epic. Following suggestions by Amitav Ghosh, we might ask what “epic forms” could be in the Anthropocene and how they appear in contemporary literature.

^{This event is addressed to fellows and their tandem partners.}