Flora’s rebellion

Plants are an underestimated motif in the science fiction genre. Aline Klieber All researchers see themselves as having curiosity: looking for answers to questions which present themselves almost of their own accord - for example with regards to man-made climate change; or to questions which are born as a researcher notices little things or because they have a prosperity for quirkiness. For the exhibition entitled "Eden? Plants between Science and Fiction", Katharina Scheerer and her peers at the "Practices of Literature" Graduate School started wondering how plants are represented in science fiction literature - and are asking the big questions in a small object of research. The project The "Eden? Plants between Science and Fiction" exhibition, grown out of the Corona pandemic, had its origins in Katharina Scheerer's dissertation, for which she examined the beginnings of German science fiction literature around 1900. In the course of her research, Scheerer found that plants are a neglected but all the more fascinating motif in a large number of texts. "Aliens, other worlds and spaceships may be more popular," she says, but then immediately counters by saying, "Whenever plants turn up as a motif , they are usually linked to contemporary discussions, for example involving climate-related catastrophes or colonialism." Reason enough to look at the ramifications of these motifs and organise workshops with writers and researchers, in which the content covered ranged from literary studies to botany.