The literary scholar will focus on encounters with trees in literary texts and other cultural media in order to explore the idea of an (inter)active forest and its experience. The lecture is part of the interdisciplinary event series "Critical Plant Studies" launched in the summer semester 2023 in cooperation with the Association of Friends and Supporters of the Botanical Garden Wuppertal e.V. and the University of Wuppertal.

The plant world in literature and art studies

The scientific study of plants is no longer the sole domain of botany. The literary and cult sciences are now also utilising new botanical and philosophical findings to question established views of plants and, on this basis, to examine the role of plants in literary texts and other cultural media. In this way, the humanities are making a significant contribution to redescribing the relationship between humans and other living beings and showing, by way of example, how artistic forms of expression can help us to think differently about the future in times of global climate change and the destruction of biodiversity.