Catherin Persing, M.A.

Dissertation Title

Performing Plants: More-than-Human Documentation Practices in the Anthropocene (Working Title)

Project Description

The multiple crises of the Anthropocene also represent a crisis of imagination, in that the massive temporal and spatial expansions of climate change, mass extinction or slow violence through environmental pollution as ‘hyperobjects’ (Morton) exceed the capacity of the human imagination. Consequently, they can also be understood as a disruption of traditional ways of perceiving nature, landscape and more-than-human entities as well as the resulting modes of documentation and representation. The project examines artistic works that employ plant perspectives and aesthetics to offer a novel approach to understanding ecological crises and histories of violence, as well as cross-species care and relationality in the Anthropocene. Plants play a pivotal role in this age of extractivism, serving as raw materials in transnational trade markets, fossil energy suppliers in expansion projects, or a resource for knowledge production in colonial botany. They are inextricably linked to its histories. Therefore, it is argued that they provide a fruitful starting point for a critical examination of the Anthropocene concept, its narratives and omissions.

The project examines the documentation of a distinct form of knowledge about and through plants, which coincides with the gaps in traditional orders of visibility. These modes of documentation can be considered in conjunction with the theoretical considerations that have been illuminating the posthumanist performativity of more-than-human actors. These considerations seek to capture them as ‘vibrant matter’ (Bennett), ‘companion species’ (Haraway) or ‘other-than-human persons’ (Hall). The artistic works are examined as practices of experimental knowledge production that reveal plants as living documents through specific modes of arrangement and representation, translation processes and the modification of existing documentary techniques and institutions from the natural sciences. The project examines the role of plants in the transformation of concepts and theories of the documentary.

One area of focus is the process of document formation: How, under what conditions and what can plants document? How plant agency becomes visible and how plants, which store their environmental conditions and thus also traces of human influence, contribute to the shaping of modes of documentation? How do the artistic works respond to the multiple crises of the present, and what insights can be gained from the examination of modes of documentation that encompass more-than-human perspectives? The project is situated at the intersection of theatre studies and the environmental humanities. The theoretical foundations of posthumanism, new materialism and new animism, which provide concepts for examining more-than-human agency and performativity, are combined with approaches from cultural plant studies and critical perspectives on the Anthropocene that challenge the assumptions on which it is based. In light of the proliferation of artistic works in recent years that engage with plants in a collaborative and active manner, the project aims to engage in a reflective process with these works to explore the potential of theatrical and documentary practices that shift the focus away from human subjects.

Scientific Career

• Since 2024: Research assistant (doctorate) at the DFG Research Training Group „The Documentary. Excess and Deprivation“, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2019-2024: Research assistant (doctorate) at the Institute for Theatre Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2018-2019: Lecturer at the Institute for Theatre Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2014-2017: Master’s degree in Theatre Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2009-2014: Bachelor’s degree in Theatre Studies and General and Comparative Literature, Ruhr University Bochum

Publications

Article

• „Monströse Mythopoiesis. Die romantische Mythologie und ihr dunkles Erbe bei H. P. Lovecraft“, in: Max Becker, Nils-Gerrit Horz, Rahel Sixta-Schmitz (ed.): Kulturelle Spiegelungen zwischen H. P. Lovecraft und Deutschland, Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder 2024, p. 101-125.
• “Pflanzen performen. Bühnen des Mehr-als-Menschlichen im Anthropozän“, in: Silvie Lang, Christine Riess & Vanessa-Nadine Sternath (ed.): Zum Pflanzen gebracht. Vegetabile agency in Mensch-Pflanzen-Netzwerken. Bielefeld: Transcript (forthcoming).
• „Adressing the Orchid by Its Name. Reimagining Plants through Performance“, in: Jamila Arenz, Veronika Darian, Jessica Hölzl (ed.): RE/VERSIONEN. Künstlerische und wissenschaftliche Verfahren der Un/Eindeutigkeit. Neofelis 2024, p. 93-97.
• „Groteske, Gewalt und Gegenschmerz. Komische Grenzvermessungen im Theater des Futurismus“, in: Guido Hiß, Burkhard Niederhoff & Monika Woitas (ed.): Wider alle Regeln? Theorie und Geschichte gespielter Komik im 20 Jahrhundert. Athena 2021, p. 141-159.
• „Von Kleingärtnern, Nekrophilen und anderen Bestien. Monster und Monstrosität in Jörg Buttgereits Nekromantik“, in: Robert Dörre, Julia Eckel, Sarah Horn, Elisa Linseisen & Leonie Zilch (ed.): ffk journal 4. Avinus 2019, p. 128-140.

Lectures

• “WASTELAND. Performen und Denken in den Ruinen des Racial Capitalocene”. Collaborative talk with Sandra Biberstein, Julia Schade and Ruth Schmidt as part of the 16. Congress of the Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaft in Leipzig from 12.-15.06.2024.
• „’From the Borders of an Alien World‘. Eco-Horror and Weird Ecologies in Algernon Blackwood’s ‚The Willows‘ and ‚The Man Whom the Trees Loved’“. Lecture as part of the Joint Annual Conference of Science Fiction Research Association & Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung in Dresden from 15.-19.08.2023.
• „’Where I come from, ghosts are not to be taken lightly.‘ Fragmentarische Wiederauferstehung und gespenstische Ontologien bei Guillermo del Toro“. Lecture as part of the International Symposium of the Inklings Gesellschaft für Literatur und Ästhetik in Magdeburg from 29.04.-01.05.2023.
• „Poesie und Schrecken: Monströse Mythenschöpfung bei H. P. Lovecraft“. Lecture as part of the Internationalen Symposium of the Inklings Gesellschaft für Literatur und Ästhetik in Bochum from 20.-22.05.2022.
• „Monster und Monstrosität bei Jörg Buttgereit“, 31. Film- und Fernsehwissenschaftliches Kolloquium in Bochum from 13.-15.02.2018.

Event Organization

• Co-Organization of the International Conference Transforming Anthropo(s)cene in Bochum from 24.-26.10.2024.

Courses

Institute for Theatre Studies, Ruhr University Bochum

• Seminars (selection): „Wie viel Mensch braucht das Theater? Emanzipation des Maschinellen auf der Bühne“ (WiSe 19/20), „Transgression und Tabu. Grenzüberschreitungen in Theater und Film“ (SoSe 20), „Theater und Ritual“ (WiSe 20/21), „Über das Vergnügen an tragischen Gegenständen. Eine Spurensuche im Theater der Gegenwart“ (SoSe 21), „Grundkurs Tragödie“ (WiSe 21/22), „‘Lernen, mit den Gespenstern zu leben‘. Das Gespenstische als Denk- und Erfahrungsmodell“ (SoSe 22), „“Performing Plants. Pflanzenbilder in Kunst und Wissenschaft (WiSe 22/23), „Bühnen des Mehr-als-Menschlichen“ (SoSe 23), „Performing Ecologies. Theater und Ecocriticism“ (WiSe 23/24), „Poetiken des Anthropozäns in den Performing Arts“ (SoSe 24)
• Lectures (selection): „Ritual und Performativität“ as part of the lecture series „Theatertheorie“ (WiSe 20/21 and 22/23), „Jüdische Theaterkulturen zwischen Fremdzuschreibung und Selbstverortung – Identitäten im Spannungsfeld der Bühne“ as part of the lecture series „Theaterhistoriographie“ (WiSe 21/22, 23/24 and 24/2