Jahresthema 2024/25: Exploitation of Resources: Environment, Labor, Energy

Largely due to a growing interest in ecocriticism, the exploitation of resources has come into focus again in recent years—and with it, criticisms of extraction and the corresponding perspective on ownership, land, and everything in and on it that favors what is considered as human needs. While ecocritical perspectives primarily focus on the dire consequences of anthropogenic interventions for entire ecosystems and non-human agents, “exploitation” similarly speaks of the abuse and mistreatment of humans in the context of capitalism and (neo-)colonialism. Yet in most instances, the term “exploitation” is used to highlight only the objects of that process. Therefore, the phrase is above all helpful in addressing structural or anonymous acts of exploitation but tends to cloak the strategies, tools, and agents that exploit in the first place. Moreover, it obscures the affinities and convergences between the exploitation of human (labor), non-human, and more-than-human ‘resources,’ including animals, land, environment, energy, and spirits. At our upcoming Jahrestagung in Vienna, we aim to focus on the various ways in which exploitation in the context of environment, labor, and energy was addressed, problematized or aestheticized between 1865 and 1933. By analyzing literary and theoretical works, historical documents as well as films and other media created during this time, we intend to identify the specific acts of narration––new and differing agents, objects, and structural presuppositions––that encompass historical as well as fictitious negotiations of exploitation.