Imagining the Anthropocene with the Wadden Sea

Katie Ritson,Eveline R De Smalen

doi:10.1007/s40152-021-00230-5

Katie Ritson, Eveline R De Smalen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-021-00230-5

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Abstract

This contribution explores the potential of the Wadden Sea for the imagination of the Anthropocene. The concept of the Anthropocene represents a challenge to the cultural imagination, as it draws together deep, geological time, recent and current events, and long futures; the geographical and generational implications of justice; and the profound entanglement of human progress with ecological decline. We argue that the cultural landscape of the Wadden Sea is a space in which these paradoxes and connections are made visible and material. Literary and artistic works engaged with the Wadden Sea display a critical awareness of Anthropocene entanglements: in our analysis, we explore visual and textual representations of the Wadden Sea and show how it serves as a site for the imagination of the past and future of our planet.

Highlights

This contribution explores the potential of the Wadden Sea for the imagination of the Anthropocene
We explore the presentation of the Wadden Sea in four literary texts, looking in particular at ways that the complex tensions, timescales, and paradoxes of the Anthropocene can be envisioned and imagined in works of literary fiction
We argue that the Wadden Sea, like the Sundarbans Ghosh explores, is a globally important wetland site that is historically entangled with the legacies of Enlightenment, empire, and extractivism that characterise the Anthropocene and, one that has global significance as a site for the imagination of the future of our blue planet

Summary

Introduction

This contribution explores the potential of the Wadden Sea for the imagination of the Anthropocene. We argue that the Wadden Sea, like the Sundarbans Ghosh explores, is a globally important wetland site that is historically entangled with the legacies of Enlightenment, empire, and extractivism that characterise the Anthropocene and, one that has global significance as a site for the imagination of the future of our blue planet.

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Conclusion