Defiant Terrains

The two-day international conference will advance research on landscapes in the Anthropocene. The topic of “Defiant Terrains” has a twofold focus: 1) On ecological spaces in which material and symbolic boundaries between humans and nature are obliterated. Anthropocene terrains are unsettled by the damaging effects of human force; but they also have an effect on the way humans conceive of themselves: as transcorporeal entities in unsteady assemblages, for example. 2) On terrains that remain withdrawn, inapporpriable and ungraspable; terrains which are cognitively and materially defiant: offer resistance to human conquest and meaning making, are inhabitable. To reach a broader public, we will invite two authors, Esther Kinsky and Jonas Eika for an evening event at the LiteraturHaus.