Cosmogony meets extinction in literary texts and graphic narratives. The aesthetics and politics of nostalgic aetiologies

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458735579

Against the backdrop of climate change and loss of biodiversity, a rising number of literary and graphic narratives combine cosmogonies and stories of (natural or cultural) evolution with scenarios of impending extinction of animal species and humanity at large. In order to tell these stories, literary texts and comics not only draw on mythical, religious and scientific aetiologies but argue aetiologically themselves by setting (diverse and sometimes misled) origins as foundational for (past and future) doom. This temporal and causal ‘double vision’ is at the heart of the individual research project and will expand and diversify the research unit’s understanding of aetiology. The selected narratives deliberately amalgamate facts and fiction, combine images from diverse discourses and historical backgrounds, seek to poeticize explanations from the natural sciences, and offer experimental variations of traditional genres such as medieval bestiaries and the long poem. Focusing on examples from different languages, the project analyzes the media-specific ways in which these texts and comics convey the multiple temporalities and recursive strategies of aetiological storytelling and seek to turn nostalgic retrospection into aesthetic experience and political awareness.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5323: Aetiologies: Founding Narratives in Literary, Scholarly, and Scientific Discourses