Anthropocene Affordances: Scale, Narrative Form, and the Human in Us-American Literature - Paperback

by Lena Pfeifer (Author)

The current historical moment, often referred to as the Anthropocene, is defined by profound human influence on the planetary system. Lena Pfeifer examines how contemporary US-American literature negotiates the political, ethical, and epistemological challenges posed by the Anthropocene. Connecting new formalist approaches with theories of scale, she develops the concept of Anthropocene affordances as a new methodological framework for analyzing narrative responses to the recent ecological crisis that reconfigure conventional forms and narrative strategies to critically discuss the role of the human as a geological force.

Author Biography

Lena Pfeifer received her doctorate in American Studies/Environmental Humanities at Universität Würzburg, where she has been working as a research assistant since 2021. Her research focuses on how literature and culture respond to the ecological crisis.