Stichworte zu Brecht

• Einfühlung vs. Verfremdungseffekt
• Theater des Wissenschaftlichen Zeitalters
• Theater = Hörsaal
• Venue for Marxist ideology
• Do away with the illusion of theater as real - no more curtain, show the musicians

Buell - The Future of Environmental Criticism

Larry Buell – The Future of Environmental Criticism.
The first chapter of Buell’s third book of/on Environmental Criticism (the others being the Environmental Imagination and Writing for an Endangered World) is a history of the emergence of environmental criticism (aka ecocriticism). Buell offers a good overview of what he calls the first and second waves of environmental criticism (first: looking primarily at nature writing, as LB does at Thoreau in The Env. Imag.; second: begins to question “organicist” view of environmental criticism – begins to look at urban/toxic/non-natural landscapes. Also, other streams of criticism creep in) and introduces many different threads of criticism that have arisen: very interesting one, ecofeminism, which sees the history of man’s dominion over nature as analogous to the oppression of women. Problems: dependence of “eco”criticism on science, which most lit scholars are weak on. Also, he acknowledges that the “environmental turn” is a recent development (he places it in the 1980-90s), but that it pursues a line of questioning that is Ancient. Also, it asserts itself as important because environment is universal. He thinks it will attain the level of AfAm Studies, Gender studies, etc. He concludes with the suggestion that environmental criticism will have to go more “mainstream” and link back up with more “traditional” critical methods before becoming more accepted, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s apparently already a rapprochement between hardcore ecocritics and other critical/theoretical techniques.

"Lieblingsblick" - Annette von Droste-Hülshoff

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff – Lieblingsblick

Mostly pastoral description of the view of the Alps from a mountain hut in the woods. Mostly typical, but definitely has Romantic overtones – especially excurs at the end about the view of the mountains being most well suited to loneliness. She describes the view of the mountains as “der Tod in seinr grossartigsten Gestalt.”

Interesting aspects: she wanders through the mountains purely in her head, while looking at them. Experience through seeing and not doing. Also, heavy resonance with Prospect/Refuge theory. Mountain hut allows prospect with distance (refuge). Also, her favorite bench (she prefers to sit outside) is shaded/hidden by grapevines.

She's one of the few female writers on the list. Interesting that she seems so drawn to the mountains, which one would seem to see as a specifically male space. Perhaps her ruminations on them and insistence on her superior knowledge of them is in reference to the forbidden nature of the mountains to women. This frustration may also be reflected in her defiance in choosing the hard path to get to the hut (softened by reference to sin/religion, but still with a heavy defiant tone).