Dialektik der Erschließung: The German–Austrian Alps between Exploration and Exploitation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks a lot for sharing this original and thought-provoking piece with me. It offers valuable insights into the Anthropocene debate from a rather unusual perspective. The use of Simony and Barth as exemplary accounts of the 19th-century explorative mode with its psychological, ecological, political, and scientific ramifications is very promising for a thick description of early Anthropocenic epistemes. In general, though, I feel the author falls a bit short of making full use of that potential. In the following I would like to ask a few questions and offer a few suggestion that may help to 'erschließen' this terrain both more deeply and with more caution.

The beginning in the version I had access to is rather abrupt and I was wondering whether there isn't an entire paragraph or section missing. In any case, I think you need to ease in your readers more gently. When you introduce the type of writing ("autobiographical climbing narrative") you are dealing with, it would be really helpful for the uninitiated reader if you could provide a more exhaustive sense of the body of works you are drawing upon. Are these representative examples of a genre hybridity that took shape in the mid-19th-cenury or are they fairly rare? What other examples could you give? You are referring to McCarthy who regards the human-mountain engagement as representative of a borader change in human-environment relations around that time. This is a wide-ranging assertion that could probably be tempered more critically.

As for the introduction of Kritische Theorie, I feel that comes a bit suddenly and without the preparation one would wish for. In terms of argumentative structure, it would probably be advisable to switch the two chapters 'Enlightenment and Environment' and 'Elucidating Erschließung'. The dovetailing of Kritische Theorie and the Anthropocene debate is also a bit too hasty for my taste and would benefit from the integration of some of the existing secondary literature, e.g. Deborah Cook on Adorno. As for the dating of the Anthropocene (cf. footnote 2), I think the debate has evolved in different direction; most geologists now favor the golden spike of radioactivity after WWII and the Great Acceleration. Maybe one could offer some further reading in a footnote on that matter (e.g. Lewis/Maslin 2018; Zalasiewicz/Williams/Thomas 2020). I also think, your discussion of Dialektik der Aufklärung would benefit from some embedding in more recent discussions (probably starting with Böhme/Böhme 1985).

The subchapter on 'Erschließung' deliberately highlights a second meaning that traverses phenomenology and existentialist epistemology, but then the remainder of the argument does not make much of this. It would be good to see this analysis of Dasein woven into your argument.

On a historical note: I am unsure about whether you are saying that glaciers in the Alps were already receding in 1844 (p. 6, 242ff.); I thought this reversal of the natural development (Earth heading towards a next ice age) only started later in the 19th century. On p. 9. I think it is important to provide more background for the discussion of the differences of the infrastructure in the Alps and in North America; an important aspect is, of course, the long history of Kulturlandschaft and Almwirtschaft, not just the short durée of industrialization. Also, what is important to bear in mind when you discuss (p. 9) the large-scale establishment of huts by many chapters of the German Alpenverein: in spite of Königgrätz and all that, the settling of the "deutsche Frage" in favor of the kleindeutsche Lösung (Prussian hegemony) rather than the großdeutsche Lösung (inclusion of Habsburg) did not mean that all Germans were part of that separation. Many Southern Germans and Catholic Germans elsewhere felt a closer cultural affinity to Austria than to Prussia that persisted into the 20th century (and, some would say, today). I think the connection between industrialization and the rise of mountaineering needs to be argued more carefully (footnote 8). After all, it's not entirely clear whether this is a historical convergence or a causal relation. The parallel rise of steel production and Alpine Erschließung only proves that it was easier to get to Alpine valleys; the actual hut system remained non-industrialized until the post-WWII era.

Smaller issues:

p. 7/303: Besuch instead of Besuchung

p. 8/348-9: "But to repeat what I stated earlier..." There are several repetitions of that kind throughout the text; I would avoid them.

 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your incisive and highly helpful comments on my manuscript. I took every one of them to heart and incorporated some kind of change as a result, whether in the main body of the manuscript or -- alas, due to reasons of space -- in the footnotes. The only suggestion I did not ultimately follow up on was the one regarding transposing the sections "Enlightenment and Environment"" and "Elucidating Erschliessung." I of course seriously considered this change and tinkered around with it, but in the end could not manage to keep the argumentative thread (in my mind, at least), intact.  Nevertheless, I cannot stress enough how much your comments helped me improve both the content and argument of my piece. Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

First of all I want to congratulate the author for undertaking this very interesting study. S/he has used the ecocritical lens very fruitfully to show early Anthropocene traces in personal and sometimes community engagements with the European Alps and the study will surely be a valuable contribution to the literary exploration of the Anthropocene. 

However there are some minor issues that need to be resolved before the work is accepted for publication: 

1. The work can be structured a bit better to make it more easily understandable to the general reader. For example, please put a section header 'Introduction' for the first paragraph and if possible, state your aim concisely within one/two sentences within this section. In addition I'd love to see a short 'Conclusion' section where you sum up the main insights plus your own opinion. 
2. On P2 you refer to Crutzen & Stoermer's identification of the industrial revolution for the onset of the Anthropocene as the 'most trendsetting theory'. While you are free to choose it as your point of reference, kindly be aware that this is no longer considered to be the most appropriate starting date by geologists and a mid 20th century onset is currently favored (for example see The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit by Zalasiewicz et al. 2019 and The Anthropocene: A multidisciplinary approach by Thomas et al. 2020. Just to further emphasize the importance of these works, while Crutzen and Stoermer are pioneers of the formal nomenclature of the Anthropocene, neither is a geologist (Crutzen is an atmospheric chemist and Stoermer a lake ecologist) and the onus of defining the Anthropocene falls mainly on geologists (and stratigraphers in particular). 
3. There are several locations of German sentences without an immediate English translation. Please provide English translations for all German sentences. 
4. P4 you mention 'Wikipedia' as a source of biographical information for the two alpinists/chroniclers. In my opinion this is not enough and so please add some more authentic sources. 
5. P13: "..anthropocenic-driven recession of glaciers...is occurring at a rate far outpacing glaciological let alone geological deep time': The expression is awkward because glaciological time is a subset of geological time (bipolar and alpine glaciation is a Quaternary phenomenon with  ~2.5 million year history vs deep geological time with a beginning date of nearly 4.6 billion years ago)...so the sentence is better framed as: "..anthropocenic-driven recession of glaciers...is occurring at a rate far outpacing geological let alone glaciological deep time'. 
6. Please check if all the references conform to the journal style. 

Good luck with the revision and I look forward to see the work in print. 

Author Response

These are awesome and insightful, indeed incisive, suggestions -- many thanks! I wholeheartedly agree with all of them and made the recommended changes. The only point I did not follow up on was your suggestion to translate the German citations/passages, some of which are quite long (esp. here in the revision). I asked the editor of this special issue about this very question, and he/she said that it was fine to leave things in German, esp. since this a part of a specifically German special issue on culture and the environment. Granted, it would certainly be nice to expose a broader Anglophone readership to the likes of Barth and Simony, but I seriously wonder if it's worth the arduous translational effort. I also worry about the resultant, indeed exorbitant, length of the article if all such sections were additionally translated. Moreover, I often deal with specific/unique German terms that elude translation (not least Erschliessung), which would require all the more extra explanations. Anyway, I remain open to translating things into English, but leave this to the discretion of the editor. And again, my main concern here concerns the projected-extended length of the manuscript. I certainly would not want to cut out key quotes in the process as a compromise.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for sharing the revised version that does indeed respond adequately to most of my concerns.

Further improvement could be made on these two points I mentioned in my report:

1

When the type of writing ("autobiographical climbing narrative") is being introduced, it would be really helpful for the uninitiated reader if the author could provide a more exhaustive sense of the body of works you are drawing upon. Are these representative examples of a genre hybridity that took shape in the mid-19th-cenury or are they fairly rare? What other examples could you give? You are referring to McCarthy who regards the human-mountain engagement as representative of a broader change in human-environment relations around that time. This is a wide-ranging assertion that could probably be tempered more critically.

2

On p. 9f. I think it is important to provide more background for the discussion of the differences of the infrastructure in the Alps and in North America; an important aspect is, of course, the long history of Kulturlandschaft and Almwirtschaft, not just the short durée of industrialization. Also, what is important to bear in mind when you discuss (p. 9) the large-scale establishment of huts by many chapters of the German Alpenverein: in spite of Königgrätz and all that, the settling of the "deutsche Frage" in favor of the kleindeutsche Lösung (Prussian hegemony) rather than the großdeutsche Lösung (inclusion of Habsburg) did not mean that all Germans were part of that separation. The merits of Keller’s monograph notwithstanding, it would be helpful if the author could offer a more differentiated take on the concept of ‚nation-building‘ in this particular case.

Author Response

Excellent -- thanks again!

I expanded, even further, on the literary-generic question of autobiographical climbing narratives. 

As for the second point regarding Kulturlandschaft/Almwirtschaft, nation-building, etc.: Since I deleted my discussion of European vs. American mountaineering traditions and practices, I felt that these further points could also be bypassed, esp. given the already lengthy Umfang of the article.