‚Where did critique run out of steam?’

So wie man gelernt hat, die Sonne in eine Anzahl konzentrischer Hüllen zu zerlegen, kann man wohl auch die Erde in Hüllen teilen, deren jede allerdings in vielfacher Verbindung mit der nächstfolgenden steht [...] Eines scheint fremdartig an diesem großen, aus Sphären gebildeten Himmelskörper, nämlich das organische Leben. (Eduard Suess)

It was the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess who introduced the concept of the biosphere as we know it today. Half a century later, following further study and popularization by the Russian-Ukrainian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, the concept gained even greater significance. According to Vernadsky, for the first time, the natural sciences were given a stable conceptual interface capable of mediating between human-made art and non-human nature. At the same time, the biosphere emerges as a kind of ontological surface upon which the long-contested distinctions between living and non-living phenomena can be decomposed and recomposed. 

This lecture takes a closer look at this history of knowledge and concepts surrounding the biosphere, as well as at the prehistory of the term as outlined by Suess and Vernadsky. Drawing on the concept of necropolitics coined by Achille Mbembe, the aim is to gain a critical perspective on the role of the scientific engagement with the planet in the development of literary realism in the 19th century. In doing so, potentially unforeseen ontological and historical horizons may be opened up that are likely to have an impact on critical discussions of space and terrestrial life in the Anthropocene.

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