Stefani Engelstein – The Wisdom behind Flowers and Bees: The Creation of Ecology in 1793
Tuesday, February 8, 2022Online Discussion
7:30 pm CET
In 1793, Christian Konrad Sprengel first proved that many plants cannot reproduce without insects, and that the structure of the flowers lures, entices, and even coerces insects into their role as pollinators. While many theologians had argued from design to intelligent designer, Sprengel’s flowers introduced the fundamentally new idea of designed cooperation between species. The word ecology wouldn’t be coined for another 75 years, but nature suddenly seemed a lot more integrated. Not all naturalists were enthusiastic: Goethe, in particular, was horrified by the idea that the purpose of a living being could lie outside itself. We will think together about Sprengel’s methods and concept of science, about his conclusions about the Creator and final purposes, and about why his idea was so shocking and disturbing to some thinkers.
Stefani Engelstein is Professor of German Studies and of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Her work focuses on literature and science, aesthetics, gender, and political theory. She is the author of Sibling Action: The Genealogical Structure of Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2017) and Anxious Anatomy: The Conception of the Human Form in Literary and Naturalist Discourse (SUNY Press, 2008), and co-editor of Contemplating Violence: Critical Studies in Modern German Culture (Rodopi Press, 2011) She is currently working on two book projects as a Visiting Scholar at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin: German Idealism and the Making of the Opposite Sex and Reflections from Germany on Diversity and Violent Pasts: An Essay in Six Cemeteries.
This event is open to the BCB Community only. Participants will be expected to complete a set reading.
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