Overview

Drawing from case studies in 20th century German literature and theory, the contributors to this volume explore the multiple dimensions behind and alongside authorship that constitutes the ""ecology"" of writing. Over the last few decades, a resurgence of interest in historical and contemporary writing processes, fueled in part by the development of digital media, has developed alongside the emergence of new conceptions of material-human agency and the environment. What would it mean to apply these conceptions to the phenomenon of writing? As the essays in this volume explore, writing is never the purely mental activity of a solitary mind; it is inherently socially embedded and always more-than-human. Examining the early 20th century to the present, a period of dramatic media-technological transition in which writers become increasingly self-reflexive and responsive to the materials and changing environmental circumstances of their craft, Ecologies of Writing expands the frame to encompass the vast array of material, social, environmental, and economic influences that all inform the practice of writing. Case studies draw on German-language literature and theory, including works by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, and W. G. Sebald, and recent theories of human-material agency, media theory, and ecocriticism.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dr. or Prof. Urs Büttner (University of Oxford, UK) ,  Dr. or Prof. Jacob Haubenreich (Johns Hopkins University, USA) ,  Prof Imke Meyer (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic USA
Dimensions:   Width: 14.40cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.00cm
Weight:   0.520kg
ISBN:  

9798765124451

Pages:   240
Publication Date:   27 November 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  

Table of Contents

Introduction Urs Büttner (Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany) and Jacob Haubenreich (Johns Hopkins University, USA) Part I. Materialities 1. “Entangled Lines of Force”: Energetic Scripts of Modernism, Susanne Strätling (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) 2. The Inhuman Scene of Nature Writing in Post-Holocaust Fiction, Jason Groves (University of Washington, USA) 3. Material Worlds and Word Materials: Street Scripts & Writing Sites in Today's Germany, Peter Schweppe (Montana State University, USA) Part II. Mind, Body, and Technical Devices 4. “This Conflict between the Soul’s Inclination and the Body’s Capabilities”: Writing Hygiene in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Urs Büttner (Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany) 5. Immersion and its Discontents: Writing Disciplines from Kafka to Hoppe, Carolin Duttlinger (University of Oxford, UK) 6. Friction and Prediction: Word Processing in the Age of AI, Richard Gibson (Wheaton College, USA) Part III. Social Conditions 7. “On the Way to a Poetic Existence”: The Craft of Writing in Lutz Seiler’s Novel Stern 111, Michael Bies (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) 8. Care Work and Cash Flow. Collaborations between Writers and Editors, Ines Barner (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) 9. Sociology of Literary Production, Carolin Amlinger (University of Basel, Switzerland) Bibliography Index

Reviews

This volume presents compelling new perspectives on practices and contexts of writing, looking beyond authorial intention and agency to the different natural and built environments, media ecologies, and social situations in which writing takes place. A delightful example of what Villem Flusser calls ‘superscript,’ or thinking and writing about writing, Ecologies of Writing boasts many inspiring insights and unexpected finds and will advance discussions about writing and media practices in the 20th and 21st centuries in media studies, materialist and object-oriented scholarship, and the sociology of literature. * Sean Franzel, Professor of German and William H. Byler Distinguished Chair in the Humanities, University of Missouri, USA *

Author Information

Urs Büttner is Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University of Oxford, UK. He previously held positions at Leibniz University Hannover, Free University Berlin and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. He taught as Max Kade Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received a Visiting Scholarship at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Durham. Jacob Haubenreich is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University, USA. He has previously held positions at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and the College of the Holy Cross, as well as positions as Visiting Scholar at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and in the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions