In the history of European thought, German Romanticism develops a unique conception of nature. It advances a holistic and animist perspective that views nature itself as a living being in which all things—the human and nonhuman—display vitality and interconnectedness. Furthermore, it pursues this task in a modern scientific and industrial context, aware of and in conversation with the then-emerging fields of biology, chemistry, geology, and economics, to name but a few. In so doing, it provides a radical critique of and constructive alternative to the reductionism of modern science and capitalism, with the aim of overcoming the increasing alienation of humankind from nature and our ever more powerful instrumentalization of nature, the dangers of which it thematized in paintings, poetry, music, and philosophical essays and fragments.

 

This project will bring together contributors from across a multiplicity of disciplines to consider the environmental thought of the German Romantic movement, with the aim of producing a systematic resource for the study of Romanticism and the environment. It is headed by Joseph Carew (University of the Fraser Valley) and Alexander JB Hampton (University of Toronto).