Event

Jul 10, 2024
Life, Earth, Colony: Friedrich Ratzel's Necropolitical Geography

deep sandy valley

Gullies near Yulin. South of Yulin, the Wuding River, and the Mu Us Desert, the results of centuries of erosion are evident. Photo: Ruth Mostern

Whether in contemporary debates around space colonisation, migration, or spheres of influence thinking, Friedrich Ratzel's corpus has resonated through the early twenty-first century in unexpected ways.

Life, Earth, Colony explores the ideas, life, and historical significance of this German zoologist turned geographer, famous for developing the foundations of geopolitical thought and for developing the concept of Lebensraum. Ratzel produced a remarkable body of work that revolutionized the study of space, movement, colonization, and war. This book closely analyzes this radical conservative intellectual, focusing on his often-overlooked ethnography, biogeography, travel, and creative writing, and colonial activism as well as his more widely known political geography. Life, Earth, Colony finds that there is an as yet unexplored necropolitical impulse at the heart of Ratzel’s entire oeuvre, a preoccupation with death and dying, which had a profound impact on twentieth-century history.

Address
MPIWG, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Room
Room 219
Contact and Registration

For inquiries, please contact Thomas Turnbull: tturnbull@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

The talk will be public and open to all who are interested in the topic.

2024-07-10T12:00:00SAVE IN I-CAL 2024-07-10 12:00:00 2024-07-10 13:30:00 Life, Earth, Colony: Friedrich Ratzel's Necropolitical Geography i Gullies near Yulin. South of Yulin, the Wuding River, and the Mu Us Desert, the results of centuries of erosion are evident. Photo: Ruth Mostern Whether in contemporary debates around space colonisation, migration, or spheres of influence thinking, Friedrich Ratzel's corpus has resonated through the early twenty-first century in unexpected ways. Life, Earth, Colony explores the ideas, life, and historical significance of this German zoologist turned geographer, famous for developing the foundations of geopolitical thought and for developing the concept of Lebensraum. Ratzel produced a remarkable body of work that revolutionized the study of space, movement, colonization, and war. This book closely analyzes this radical conservative intellectual, focusing on his often-overlooked ethnography, biogeography, travel, and creative writing, and colonial activism as well as his more widely known political geography. Life, Earth, Colony finds that there is an as yet unexplored necropolitical impulse at the heart of Ratzel’s entire oeuvre, a preoccupation with death and dying, which had a profound impact on twentieth-century history. MPIWG, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany Room 219 Thomas Turnbull Thomas Turnbull Europe/Berlin public