Workshop “Posthuman Entanglements: Poetry in the Technocene”

14 February 2025

Photo: United States Geological Service (USGS)

From February 27 to 28, an internal interdisciplinary workshop will take place in preparation for the edited volume Posthumane Verflechtungen: Lyrik im Technozän (Posthuman Entanglements: Poetry in the Technocene). The event is being organized by Anna Hofman, PhD student, and Antje Schmidt, postdoctoral researcher (both subproject 3). At the workshop, German-speaking contributors will gather to discuss detailed handouts and materials for their articles.

Cyborgs, infrastructurally remodeled natural spaces like the ocean, and digitally designed or bizarrely glitchy environments are just some of the phenomena in poetry that will be explored during the workshop. The forthcoming volume, edited by Antje Schmidt in collaboration with Anna Hofman, will examine poetry in the Technocene, which stages entanglements between various actants – plants, technologies, and humans.

The volume’s point of departure is the hypothesis that, with the advent of the Anthropocene, categorical constructions of “nature” as passive, static, and separate from humans are increasingly dissipating in poetry. Instead, contemporary poetry envisions the interweaving of unequal entities and actants, as described by influential thinkers like Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. Contemporary multimodal poems use poetic means to explore and sketch out posthuman environments in which the human subject and its technologies are inextricably entangled. Questions of form, mediality, and materiality are therefore of increased relevance in explorations of Technocene poetry.

To attend the workshop, please contact the organizers. Email: antje.schmidt"AT"uni-hamburg.de.