Lichen
- Helga G. Braunbeck (author)
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| Title | Lichen |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Helga G. Braunbeck (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.53288/0396.1.07 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/microbium-the-neglected-lives-of-micro-matter/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Helga G. Braunbeck |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2023-09-07 |
| Long abstract | Lichen is the poster child for symbiosis, functioning as a collaboration of a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria—or sometimes all three—which enables it to survive in the climatically and nutritionally most challenging environments, such as extreme cold or heat. One of the oldest organisms in earth’s biosphere, it has developed a lifestyle that still retains its mystery but nevertheless provides a paradigm that may serve human societies well: rather than on the competition of individuals it is based on community-building. Displaying a tremendous diversity of colors and shapes, it may paint the landscape, serve as medicine or food, or be used to monitor air quality. Poets marvel at lichen’s power—it can grow into and decompose rock, attach itself to a wide variety of surfaces, and live for thousands of years. Novelists have explored lichen’s extreme longevity for the idea of extending human lifespan and its symbiotic lifestyle as a metaphor for the challenging process of individuation among twins. Today’s appreciation of networks, interconnectivity, and “being-with” may be related to the scientific discovery of symbiotic ways of life as well as an increasing societal awareness of the benefits to be gained from collaboration. |
| Page range | pp. 81–97 |
| Print length | 16 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Keywords |
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Helga G. Braunbeck
(author)As the granddaughter of two German foresters, Helga G. Braunbeck grew up close to nature. Her first garden was a mini-forest of small trees transplanted from the real forest. She moved on to study German and English literature in Tübingen/Germany, Oregon, and California and is now Professor of German Studies at NC State University in Raleigh, NC. Her two books discuss issues of authorship in GDR writer Christa Wolf, and intermediality in the work of Prague German author Libuše Moníková. After her second book, she turned her attention to the environmental humanities and became especially interested in literary and cultural plant studies. She has published about Klaus Modick’s novella Moss, lignite mining in German culture, and the impact of the Anthropocene on gardens and gardening in recent German literature. Her current projects focus on plant poetics and literary representations of arboreal imaginaries. And her current garden is filled with flowers, veggies, wildlife, and more than sixty trees. The older ones are covered in lovely moss and lichen.