2022 (1)

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Das „diplomatische Jahrhundert“: Mediatisierung von Zeitverhältnissen in den Staatswissenschaften des 18. Jahrhunderts
Richter, Tilman (2022) , S. 12-25
This essay argues that the assessment of the Anthropocene as a geological period characterized by the irreversible influence of human action on its environments should be supplemented by the consideration of media that shape the notion of history and its temporal structures – and therefore allow for such an assessment in the first place. For this purpose, the text examines practices of paperwork in early modern Germany. Reconstructing Johann Gottfried von Meiern’s concept of a past formed by historical records that can be collected and edited, it considers how practices of editing contributed to an understanding of a mediated past accessible through writing, allowing both for a better perception of the present and the planning of the future. The paper then also looks at practices of administrative writing through the example of Friedrich Karl Moser’s reflections on the contra-signature and examines how these practices helped shaping an environment of paperwork that individuals and institutions had to work through. The essay argues that these media practices shaped the concept of media as an environment that could be used as a resource but also needed to be controlled. Hence, early modern paperwork can be understood as part of the prehistory of discourses that complement the notion of the Anthropocene with the concept of a Mediocene.
Einleitung: Moderne Zeitlichkeiten und das Anthropozän
Ingwersen, Moritz; Steglich, Sina (2022) , S. 1-11
Framed by the difficulty of coming to terms with the disruptive temporalities of the climate crisis, the proposition of the Anthropocene invites a critical re-contextualization of modern concepts of time and subjectivity. The declaration of the human as an agent of geological stratification both re-inscribes and challenges the temporal self-image of western modernity as an anthropocentric narrative of progress and ontological supremacy. Establishing a dialogue between historiography and the environmental humanities, this article embeds the Anthropocene hypothesis in recent scholarship on the pluralization of modern temporalities and suggests opportunities to revisit and decenter the specific hegemonic preconceptions and implications of considering modernity and the Anthropocene as temporal regimes with universalist, yet contingent claims on divergent conceptions of being-intime. Contextualized with references to the emergence of historicism in the late 19th century and decolonial critiques that help frame the articulation of western modernity as a practice of temporalized hegemony, this article provides a stepping-stone and introduction to what it might mean to revisit and pluralize modern times against the backdrop of the Anthropocene.
Vom Ausgang der Erde aus der Welt des Menschen, oder: Wie das „Prä-“ vor die Geschichte kam
Steglich, Sina (2022) , S. 26-38
The anthropocene discourse is a fascinating intervention into the current understanding of the human sphere and its environment, stimulating the re-shaping of “natural” as well as disciplinary, epistemological boundaries. But the vivid circulation of this vibrant term seems to hide the fact that the binary of the natural and the cultural sphere is not a recent invention nor is it itself a “natural” differentiation. This article will therefore shed light on its intellectual predecessors and its diachronic depth discussing contributions to European enlightenment historiography around 1800 and their nar-rowing understanding of “universal history” as human, written history – and as such clearly separated from the history of the earth and other species. Analyzing this crucial episode of modern historiogra-phy is of genuine importance: this specific understanding of history as limited to humans has to be regarded as the fundamental epistemological shift separating the two worlds of nature and culture that remains influential until the present day and is currently challenged by the anthropocence discourse.
Zukunftspolitik im Technozän. Der Technikfolgendiskurs in den 1970er Jahren
Doil, Lukas (2022) , S. 88-106
At the end of the post-war economic boom in the late 1960s, a new paradigm of futures studies emerged in “western” nations and institutions. Following an era which saw a broad, albeit ambivalent, influx of cybernetic planning discourses and a euphoria for growth and science, undesired and unplanned consequences of scientific and economic expansion were now chiefly problematized. This article traces the discourse of Technology Assessment (TA), a political and scientific process in development to “foresee” harmful effects on environments, societies, and economies. It soon proved to be a field of action for both politicians who valued it as a means of technology control, and for experts of futurology to reappraise their methods under new auspices. TA and its scientific and institutional legacy in the present relate to the ongoing debate about the Anthropocene. While TA is in its essence oriented towards a progressive and positivistic outlook on the future and knowledge thereof, the Anthropocene discourse has similar origins in futures semantics found in the 1970s. Both concepts should be historicized in regard to their scientific and political contexts.

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