Recreating Nature: German Romantic Landscapes as Cultural Ecology

Follow Dennis Mahoney, the Wolfgang and Barbara Mieder Green and Gold Professor of German at the University of Vermont, on a journey from the 1800s to today. He’ll start with the economic, scientific, and philosophical developments in German territories around 1800 that helped lead to a new conception and depiction of nature in art and literature. Then, drawing on the notion of art and literature as a cultural ecology that criticizes current practices and presents images of what society lacks or desires, he’ll conclude by sketching out some of the German Romantic roots of today’s environmental movement.