MLA forum for 18th- and Early-19th-Century German: 2024 conference | Philadelphia (15.03.2023)

MLA forum for 18th- and Early-19th-Century German:  2024 conference in Philadelphia, PA 4-7 January

Short MLA CFP:

ENERGY: This panel addresses concepts of “Energie” including the “Wende” from wood-burning to coal after 1750, as well as mesmerism, galvanism, “Kraft,” caffeine, food, non-human bodies, melancholy fatigue, and Faust’s magically-powered “Lemuren” building the dike.

Longer version:

ENERGY: Transitioning from wood burning to coal in the 18th-early 19th century shaped German culture and literature, as did various shifting ideas of “Energie.” While Patricia Yaeger’s Editor’s Column for the March 2011 PMLA asks “what happens if we sort texts according to the energy sources that make them possible,” Dipesh Chakrabarty writes in “The Climate of History: Four Theses”: “The mansion of modern freedoms stands on an ever-expanding base of fossil-fuel use.” This panel addresses this kind of energy- and material-culture development in German-language texts while also considering a much broader array of energy concepts including: mesmerism, galvanism, “Kraft,” caffeine, food, non-human bodies, melancholy fatigue, gendered and racist ideas about work and labor, and mining discourse.   

Indeed, Goethe’s administrative texts on Ilmenau celebrate the possibility of discovering “Braunkohle” and other “von Fossilien brennbaren Materialien,” while his taxation documents mention the need to avoid suppressing the “Kräfte” of bodies and minds with too many taxes. He notes that the residents of mountains have “immer mehr Energie als der Ackerbauer,” and then concludes that no new taxes should be added, nor should one demand payments in the form of chickens or poppy seeds. What fiscal, food, and forest policies that build on bodily or state energy needs are relevant here and how do they appear more broadly in texts? One might think of Wilhelm Hauff’s portrayal of the charcoal burner in his fairy tale, Das kalte Herz or Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s Die Judenbuche and the question of access to the forest and wood as the commons or as the property of the wealthy. And why does Goethe, who knows concretely how much mining operations demand energy such as the cutting of forests for wood, have the magical spirits, the “Lemuren,” build the dike in Faust II, an operation that would have required massive amounts of energy whether wood-burning, animal or human labor, and sufficient food, etc.? 

Other visions of energy as concepts such as the many debates about “Kraft,” and “Lebenskraft,” among the scientists and “Naturphilosophen” are invited as well as the possible conduits between the modern conception of “energy” and its etymological roots in Greek “energeia” (actualization, or: being-at-work). In the 18th century, the relation of “energia” to “enargia” (brightness, vividness) was still a vibrant issue in rhetoric (as in Lessing's Laokoon).

Additionally, texts documenting issues related to human bodily energy such as drinking coffee would be especially relevant; that is, what evidence can one find in German-speaking texts of the 18th- and early 19th-century for Michael Pollan’s claim in his audiobook, Caffeine, that caffeine “fueled the Enlightenment” but also supported slavery plantations? One might discuss works featuring coffee-drinking such as J.M.R. Lenz’s characters in both his play Der Hofmeister, and his story “Der Landprediger,” or Bach's so-called Coffee Cantata, “Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht.”  Conversely, what forms of the lack of energy do we find in terms of hunger, cold, being overworked, or the deep fatigue of melancholia? Consider, for example, Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, who is limited to eating green peas, or other texts depicting extreme labor, food deprivation, or depression-induced lethargy. We particularly encourage intersectional discussions addressing gendered and embodied ideas of energy, class, and/or racist notions such as the colonial writings from the many explorers of the time describing the so-called work ethic of other peoples. The frame is energy, whether bodily, as natural resource, mental power, or philosophical concepts.

Deadline for abstracts: March 15th. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words along with a short bio to Heather Sullivan, hsulliva@trinity.edu