Nature, language, and religion: Herder and beyond

Rigby, K (2017) 'Nature, language, and religion: Herder and beyond.' In: Dürbeck, G, Stobbe, U, Zapf, H and Zemanek, E, eds. Ecological thought in German literature and culture. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, pp. 31-42. ISBN 9781498514927

Abstract

Within the variegated tapestry of contemporary ecological thought, two strands in particular are pertinent to the historical exploration of German antecedents in this chapter: namely biosemiotics and ecotheology. While the former constitutes an interdisciplinary, transnational, and wholly secular research project, addressed to the multifarious and multifaceted communicative processes (semiosis) that are intrinsic to the co-becoming of all living organisms (bios), the latter is confined to eco-religious studies, and has been concerned exclusively with biblical texts and traditions. Each emerged separately from one another towards the end of the twentieth century, and they remain distinct enterprises to this day. Both, however, have important precursors in German thought and literature around 1800; and within the extraordinary ferment of new ideas, expanding knowledge, and poetic experimentation that got going during the Goethezeit (“Age of Goethe,” 1770-1830), both were intimately interlinked. Recalling such historical interlinkages, moreover, has the capacity to enrich and extend contemporary ecological thought, as I hope to demonstrate in this chapter.

Item Type:	Book Chapter or Section
Divisions:	School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2019 11:37
Last Modified:	15 Aug 2021 09:51
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/11936

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