TY  - JOUR
A1  - Völker, Oliver
T1  - "Che tempo, che tempo": Geology and Environment in Max Frisch’s 'Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän'
T2  - On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture
N2  - Critical readings of Frisch’s Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän [Man in the Holocene] have tended to read its heterogeneous and inter-medial form as a code for the mental disintegration of its protagonist. This paper argues instead that this feature can be seen as a poetological engagement with geological and climatic timescales. Due to its hybrid form, the incorporation of a multiplicity of textual fragments and pictorial representations, the text undermines both conventional definitions of narrative and representations of nature. Holozän’s non-linear structure establishes an aesthetic of slowness that ushers in an awareness of the utterly different time schemes of geological and climatic processes. Furthermore, the importance of the material features, such as an interplay between text and image and the disconnected, paratactical arrangement of sentences mirrors the novel’s focus on natural phenomena. Frisch’s narrative establishes a poetics that tries to reach beyond the confinements of an anthropocentric perspective and thereby subverts the borders between culture and environment.
KW  - aesthetic of slowness
KW  - anthropocene
KW  - geology
KW  - Man in the Holocene
KW  - Max Frisch
Y1  - 2016
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/53250
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-532501
UR  - https://www.on-culture.org/journal/issue-2/voelker-geology-environment/
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:26-opus-123560
SN  - 2366-4142
VL  - 2016
IS  - 2
SP  - 1
EP  - 21
PB  - International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
CY  - Gießen
ER  -