STUDY PROJECT “CARBON 3EX”
Coal is the material that has predominantly shaped Lusatia, including Cottbus, for around 100 years. Particularly the industrial EXploitation of the Lausitz brown coal has structured the social, economic and political life in the region. The EXcavation activities have shaped the whole landscape, erased smaller villages, and it has strongly influenced the Sorbian heritage and the relationship between Sorbs, Germans and migrants who were needed as workers. The still ongoing EXtraction on several levels will be the main focus of this study project with a special emphasis on the material extraction and extractivism theories. A number of topics will be dealt with against this background, also depending on the particular interests of the participants.
Examining the Material History
What we call coal is the remnant of a breathtakingly vibrant and diverse ecosystem that existed in Lusatia about 12-15 million years ago. The earth's climate was significantly wetter and warmer than it is today, and Central Europe was in a subtropical zone. Where there are pines and birches today, there were evergreen deciduous forests with laurels, magnolias, figs and palms. The evergreen forests were flooded, their trees and shrubs food for microorganisms, covered with sand, and intensive metabolic processes led to the formation of bogs and peat and, over millions of years, to sediments with a high proportion of organic matter, which were compacted and shifted by geological processes such as the ice ages. What we see today, when we visit lignite mines such as the one in Welzow, are plants millions of years old, that are still identifiable: plant fibers, some of which are several meters long, and the material extracted from the exposed layers with its criss-crossing fibrous structures is more reminiscent of trees felled by wind than of rock. It takes a great deal of technical effort and energy to transform this material into industrial coal. And while other fossil wood is exhibited in natural history museums as "petrified wood" and reverently admired for its testimony to millions of years of earth history of the Miocene, wood fibers in Welzow South are nothing but an obstacle in the open-cast mining process.
Timescapes of wood
We will be tracing the timescapes of the genesis of the coal and the path of its transformation into the industrial product “energy”. We will take a closer look at the performative strategies of museums, how they thematize geological timescapes and which objects are exhibited and how. What characteristics and values are invoked with an exhibit of "old wood" when it is thematized as a witness to long past eras, as a socio-economic product, as a source of energy, or as a driver of climate change and CO2 producer? When did the phenomenon called extractivism started and how is it linked to the development of theories in the field of political ecology that deal with the concept of ecotechnology as a counter-concept? And what does it mean to the soils when they are so heavily worked, when suddenly the bottom is on top and the soils quite literally lose their cohesion. How does the new layering of the landscape affect humans and animals, especially the animals that live in the soil, but also our understanding of the cultural landscape?
The cultural technicity of coal
Another aspect of coal is that it has been used by people for thousands of years and is therefore also a testimony to the cultural development of different cultures. Archaeological finds bear witness to this and can provide information about earlier human-environment relationships, particularly through technical reconstructions of craft techniques and structures. Increasingly, questions about more sustainable ways of life are also being asked in this context, for example old agricultural varieties are being cultivated again, energy balances are being drawn up and earlier building techniques are being investigated. In this context, too, coal is being reconstructed in a certain way, which we will look at in more detail. In the age of the Anthropocene this research gains more and more importance when it is asked how the carbon cycle has changed and to what extent human activities have influenced it.
What are the activities in and the requirements of the course?
The topics are offered, discussed and chosen in the first and second sessions. In addition to an introduction to the theoretical topics of extractivism, the Anthropocene, eco-technological approaches and heritage studies on industrial culture and geoparks, we will be visiting several museums, will get to know the Cooperation project of the Lusatian UNESCO sites for a sustainable transformation, finally we will hopefully also take part in the inauguration ceremony of a plein-air art project. Conversely, we will have guests presenting us their projects or telling us about their research and theoretical framework. Accordingly, the course is organized around lectures, excursions, discussions in seminars, interventions from other students, artists and museum curators – and of course your own research.
The general learning outcome of this study project is having adopted knowledge about theories and concepts in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) anthropology, and philosophy of technology and about critical studies of nature-culture debates in different discourses (such as the extractivism and the ecotechnology discourse). In the end students have organized a study project, including a public presentation and a project report. In this practice-based research project students learn how to communicate and scientifically orient in an interdisciplinary context. In the end students have created a public presentation and a project report.
I would like to point out that we are particularly interested in creative strategies dealing with material and also social transformation. We will explore experimental practices that will lead us into a border area between scientific and artistic research. Also, we are particularly interested in the contradictions and contrasts addressed between traditional values and continuity, historical objects and discourses of delimitation (including literal border discourses) on the one hand, and socio-technical change and cultural ruptures on the other. Accordingly, we are interested in identifying and analyzing the socio-technical and anthropological aspects of industrial culture and craftsmanship, of agribusiness and other land use techniques, and in contextualizing them with artistic work.
Examinations to be completed:
- project proposal (max. 2 pages, 15%)
- final presentation, including one page handout (20%)
- project report (min. 5000 words, 65%)
Literature for the first sessions:
Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette (2021) Rethinking time in response to the Anthropocene: From timescales to timescapes. The Anthropocene Review, pp. 1-14 Frodeman,
Robert (2003). Geo-Logic. (individual chapters will be made available on moodle)
Schwarz, Astrid (2022). Ecotechnology. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. doi: doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.134
How many students?
WHS and HCSM on site – maximum 8 students
TeSS – maximum 4 students
Project objective:
creation of a creative documentation of different aspects of coal in time and space
Time and place:
Mi 11:30 - 13:00,
A/B week,
first meeting 21.04.2023,
ZHG R1
For further information on the preparation for the first course and the following meetings please visit the study’s project moodle page after April 8
