Plant and settle. Eighteenth-century fictions of European colonisation (Defoe, Saint-Pierre, Kleist)

This thesis assesses the part played by fictional literature in imagining the European settler colony. It aims to show how texts like the immensely popular novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) and the eighteenth-century fictions it inspired presented a particular version of European settlement of the non-European world as a benign and noble enterprise. As shall be argued, they did this by drawing on metaphors of cultivation, propagation and by framing conquest as an act of gardening that had an indelibly improving and civilising influence wherever it was applied. Harmoniously planting and settling the colonies, and reproducing the European homeland in the process, was the ideal that carried these narratives – an ideal, nonetheless, that systematically masked its own violent and destructive tendencies.

Aufsätze

- ‘Eine “Geschichte des Menschen im Kleinen.” Johann Karl Wezels Neubearbeitung des Robinson Krusoe (1779/80) und die Vierstufentheorie Adam Smiths.’ In: Britisch-deutscher Literaturtransfer 1756-1832, hrsg. Lore Knapp and Eike Kronshage. Berlin: De Gruyter 2016, 93-112.

Vorträge

- '"Chaste Beauty." Constructions of 'Race' in Georg Forster's Essay Der Brotbaum ('The Breadtree,' 1784).' Kapitelentwurf vorgestellt beim 11. Studientag Literatur und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin), 15.07.2016.

- 'George Anson's Landscapes. The English Garden and Imperial Power.' German Graduate Research Seminar, University of Cambridge, Sedgwick Site (Department for Germanic Studies), 13.06.2016.  

- "'Desert Island' Paradise and the Invisible Hand of Civilisation: Transplantation and/as Empire in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761)." Workshop 'Pazifik-Literatur um 1800 / um 2000, Universität Bern, Haus der Universität, 12.03.2016. 

- 'Adam Smith in Johann Karl Wezels Bearbeitung des Robinson Crusoe (1779/80)'. Schlegel-Studientage, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Grimm-Zentrum, 11.10.2014.

Articles

- ‘Eine “Geschichte des Menschen im Kleinen.” Johann Karl Wezels Neubearbeitung des Robinson Krusoe (1779/80) und die Vierstufentheorie Adam Smiths’ [A "History of Mankind in Miniature": Johann Karl Wezel's Adaptation of Robinson Crusoe (1779/80) and Adam Smith's Four Stages Theory'], Britisch-deutscher Literaturtransfer, 1756-1832, ed. Lore Knapp and Eike Kronshage (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 93-112.

Conference activity

- '"Chaste Beauty." Constructions of 'Race' in Georg Forster's Essay Der Brotbaum (The Breadtree, 1784).' Draft chapter presented at the 11th Conference for Literature and Science History, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin), 15.07.2016.

- 'George Anson's Landscapes. The English Garden and Imperial Power.' German Graduate Research Seminar, University of Cambridge, Sedgwick Site (Department for Germanic Studies), 13.06.2016.  

- "'Desert Island' Paradise and the Invisible Hand of Civilisation: Transplantation and/as Empire in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761)." Workshop 'Pazifik-Literatur um 1800 / um 2000, Universität Bern, Haus der Universität, 12.03.2016. 

- 'Adam Smith in Johann Karl Wezels Bearbeitung des Robinson Crusoe (1779/80)' [Adam Smith in Johann Karl Wezel's Adaptation of Robinson Crusoe (1779/80)]. Schlegel-Studientage, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Grimm-Zentrum, 11.10.2014.