Sponsored by the Center for German & European Studies (CGES) and the Nelson Institute’s Center for Culture, History and the Environment (CHE).
Poster: 3.11.20 Christof Mauch Slow Hope
Departing from Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence”—which describes the gradual, almost invisible nature of much environmental damage—Mauch highlights the mostly untold stories of
quiet but positive environmental change that are often hiding in plain sight. The search for environmental hope does not downplay the magnitude of the problems we are facing, nor is it
synonymous with unadulterated optimism. Yet, as Mauch shows, it is possible to look to hopeful narratives as alternatives to stories of decline—narratives which can help us to think creatively and act courageously in these times of converging ecological, social, and economic crises.
Prof. Dr. Christof Mauch is Director of the Rachel Carson Center as well as the Chair in American Culture and Transatlantic Relations at LMU Munich. He is also an affiliated professor in the History Faculty of LMU Munich and is an Honorary Professor at Renmin University in China. His recent publications include “Malibu, California: Edenic Illusions and Natural Disasters” in Hersey and Steinberg, A Field on Fire: Essays on the Future of Environmental History (2019), Ecopolis Munich: Environmental Stories of Discovery: Catalogue of an Exhibition, ed. with Gesa Lüdecke (2019) and Slow Hope: Rethinking Ecologies of Crisis and Fear (2019).