About the Project
Attention towards the environment and its cultural construction has become increasingly prominent in literary studies in recent years, with the development of ecocriticism reflecting broader cultural concerns over environmental destruction, and the effects of human interaction with the surrounding world. Through analysing nineteenth-century literary texts written in French and German, the successful candidate will contribute to understanding the cultural history of European attitudes towards the environment. Many of our contemporary ideas about nature and ecology are rooted in European Romantic thought, following on, for example, from Rousseau in the eighteenth century, and shaped further over the course of the nineteenth century. Despite strong French and German traditions in thinking about humanity’s relationship with nature, very few ecocritical readings have been offered of French and German literature of the nineteenth century. Such questions were, however, crucial in this period, when central Europe was highly dependent on agriculture and yet also challenged by the increasingly rapid development of urban centres.
The successful applicant might investigate work by French authors such as Gustave Flaubert, Émile Zola, Jules Verne, J. K. Huysmans, Charles Baudelaire, or George Sand; while German authors might include E.T.A. Hoffmann, Heinrich von Kleist, Friedrich Hölderlin, Theodor Fontane, Adalbert Stifter or Theodor Storm. The project may focus on novels, stories, novellas, drama or poetry of this period, or investigate the influence of theoretical writers, movements such as Naturphilosophie, or travel writing by figures such as Alexander von Humboldt. Through a comparative analysis of literary texts, the project offers significant potential for tracing early environmental concerns and providing insight into cultural constructions of the environment at a key historical juncture.
Funding Notes
This project is funded by a University of Aberdeen Elphinstone Scholarship. An Elphinstone Scholarship covers the cost of tuition fees, whether Home, EU or Overseas.
Selection will be made on the basis of academic merit. The applicant should have a background in French and German literature, to be read in the original. For information about English-language requirements, see https://www.abdn.ac.uk/study/international/english-requirements.php.