Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Anthropocene in Contemporary German Ecothrillers

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene

Part of the book series: Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment ((LCE))

Abstract

Ecothrillers deal with the mostly invisible and intangible problems of climate change by searching for better ways of imagining its relations to nature and humanity. Ecothrillers present a global environmental crisis with variegated local effects that threaten all humankind but can still be prevented at the very last minute. The environmental crisis is mostly depicted as a result of anthropocentric dominion over nature, as a rationalistic ideology of progression and technological-economical exploitation of natural resources. The chapter (1) presents the impact of the Anthropocene for the humanities, (2) summarizes the characteristics of ecothrillers, and (3) analyzes prominent German-speaking examples by Frank Schätzing and Bernd C. Fleck while scrutinizing their different narrative patterns (precautionary, apocalyptic, dystopian, utopian) to contribute to a reflection on species agency.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Works Cited

  • Brunner John. Bedlam Planet. Ace, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination. Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Harvard UP, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia, Banyan Tree Books, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Climate Makes History.” IWM Post, vol. 104, 2010, p. 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen, Paul. “Geology of Mankind.” Nature, vol. 415, 2002, p. 23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen, Paul, and Eugene Stoermer. “The Anthropocene.” IGBP Global Change Newsletter, vol. 41, 2000, pp. 16–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Detje, Robin. “Die Rache des Killerschleims.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, vol. 53, no. 3, 2004, p. 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dürbeck, Gabriele. Stereotype Paradiese. Ozeanismus in der deutschen Südseeliteratur, 1815–1914. Niemeyer, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———, and Peter H. Feindt. “Der Schwarm und das Netzwerk im multiskalaren Raum: Umweltdiskurse und Naturkonzepte in Schätzings Ökothriller.” Ökologische Transformationen und literarische Repräsentation, edited by Maren Ermisch et al., Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2010, pp. 213–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “Writing catastrophes: Interdisciplinary perspectives on the semantics of natural and anthropogenic disasters.” Ecozon@, vol. 3, no. 1, 2012a, pp. 1–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “ Popular Science and Apocalyptic Narrative in Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm (2004).” Ecozon@, vol. 3, no. 1, 2012b, pp. 20–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eschbach, Andreas. Ausgebrannt. Roman. Lübbe, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleck, Dirk C. GO! Die Ökodiktatur. Roman. Rasch and Röhring, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Das Tahiti-Projekt. Pendo-Verlag, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Feuer am Fuß. AndroSF, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freystedt, Volker, and Eric Bihl. Equilibrismus. Neue Konzepte statt Reformen für eine Welt im Gleichgewicht. Signum, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. Routledge, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodbody, Axel H. “Melting Ice and the Paradoxes of Zeno: Didactic Impulses and Aesthetic Distanciation in German Climate Change Fiction.” Ecozona@, vol. 4, no. 1, 2013, pp. 92–102.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hahnemann, Andy. “‘Footnotes are real’: Populäre Literatur als Medium der Wissensvermittlung.” Non Fiktion. Arsenal der anderen Gattungen, vol. 4, no. 1, 2006, pp. 142–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hefner, Ulrich. Die dritte Ebene. Öko-Thriller. Goldmann, 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet. The Environmental Imagination of the Global. Oxford UP, 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “Introduction: The Invention of Ecofutures.” Ecozon@, vol. 3, no. 2, 2012, pp. 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “Comparative Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene.” Komparatistik, 2013, pp. 19–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofmeister, Christina. Reflexion der Umweltdebatte in deutschsprachigen Ökothrillern des 21. Jahrhunderts. Diss. Vechta University, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, Eva. “Das Leben ein Schwarm. Emergenz und Evolution in moderner Science Fiction.” Schwärme—Kollektive ohne Zentrum. Eine Wissensgeschichte zwischen Leben und Information, edited by Eva Horn and Lucas Marco Gisi, Transcript-Verlag, 2009, pp. 101–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerridge, Richard. “Ecothrillers: Environmental Cliffhangers.” The Green Studies Reader. From Romanticism to Ecocriticism, edited by Laurence Coupe, Routledge, 2000, pp. 242–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerridge, Richard, and Neil Sammells, eds. Writing the Environment. Ecocriticsm and Literature. Zed Books, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction. An Unnatural History. Bloomsbury, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, Simon L., and Marc A. Maslin. “Defining the Anthropocene.” Nature, vol. 519, 2015, pp. 171–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mehnert, Antonia. “Climate Change Futures and the Imagination of the Global in Maeva! By Dirk C. Fleck.” Ecozon@, vol. 3, no. 2, 2012, pp. 27–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, Patrick D. “The Non-Alibi of Alien Scape. SF and Ecocriticism.” Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism, edited by Karla Armbruster and Kathleen R. Wallace, U of Virginia P, 2001, pp. 263–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. “Environmentalism.” The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Marc Bould et al., Routledge, 2009, pp. 373–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oels, David, Stephan Porombka and Erhard Schütz. “Doku Fiktion—Editorial.” Non Fiktion. Arsenal der anderen Gattungen, vol. 4, no. 1, 2006, pp. 108–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Otto, Eric C. “‘From a certain Angle’: Ecothriller Reading and Science Fiction Reading: The Swarm and The Rapture.” Ecozon@, vol. 3, no. 2, 2012, pp. 106–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schätzing, Frank. The Swarm. A Novel of the Deep, translated by Sally-Ann Spencer, Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stableford, Brian. Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steffen, Will, et al. “The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?” Ambio, vol. 36, no. 8, 2007, pp. 614–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Syvitski, James. “Anthropocene: An Epoch of Our Making.” Global Change, vol. 78, 2012, pp. 12–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wanning, Berbeli. “Yrrsinn oder die Auflehnung der Natur: Kulturökologische Betrachtungen zu Der Schwarm von Frank Schätzing.” Kulturökologie und Literatur. Beiträge zu einem transdisziplinären Paradigma der Literaturwissenschaft, edited by Hubert Zapf, Winter, 2008, pp. 339–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zalasiewicz, Jan, et al. “Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 369, 2011, pp. 1036–55.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vechta University, Vechta, Germany

    Gabriele Dürbeck

Authors
  1. Gabriele Dürbeck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Caroline Schaumann

  2. Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Heather I. Sullivan

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Dürbeck, G. (2017). The Anthropocene in Contemporary German Ecothrillers. In: Schaumann, C., Sullivan, H. (eds) German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene. Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54222-9_17

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation