This course looks at how sustainability became part of mainstream culture in Europe. Known as the country of poets and thinkers, German artists and thinkers today have a reputation for being integral to Germany's role in environmental innovation. Public concern about environmental issues is driving social, political, and cultural change in German-speaking countries - Green party successes, renewable energy initiatives, and cradle-to-cradle design have deep historical roots.
We will explore how literary and non-fiction writing, film, and the arts have shaped German and European environmental thinking. While Romantic writers found inspiration in nature and German scientists pioneered principles of ecology, nationalistic glorification of nature was suspect after 1945, due to its negative association with National Socialism. More contemporarily, writers and other public intellectuals have been active in reshaping attitudes about environmentalism. In this course, frequent comparisons will be made with global developments and the U.S. Our starting point is Faust (by Goethe) and a contemporary novel about the early scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Other texts include a novella about Chernobyl, a graphic-format pamphlet, and media works.