Workshop

Where the Wild Things Sell: Wilderness Economies in Multidisciplinary Perspective

At a time of profound anxiety about ongoing global environmental transformations wrought by human industry and commerce, this workshop examines practices and discourses surrounding the commercial exploitation of ‘the wild’, a natural world imagined to be untouched, ‘unfallen’, and a last refuge of both nature and human innocence. The workshop is thus concerned with practices, imaginaries, debates, and anxieties in relation to the ‘wilderness’ ideology that has taken shape since the onset of the industrial revolution around 1800. Contributors focus on the expansion of market and monetized exchanges of ‘wild’ plants, animals, and landscapes, which are imagined in opposition to ‘domesticated’ organisms, cultivated agricultural commodities, or humanized environments.

Participation is by invitation only. Please direct any questions to Jonathan DeVore at jdevore@uni-koeln.de