Verstörung-often considered a minor work by Bernhard-is a somewhat overlooked example of ecologically oriented fiction in the German language. In this novel, Bernhard examines the implications of a darkly ecological concept of the environment (as this article characterizes it with reference to Timothy Morton), confronting it with epistemological questions and placing it in the context of psychoanalysis and Schopenhauerian metaphysics. The novel anticipates some important aspects of the Anthropocene thesis in its critique of the nature/culture divide, its widening of the concept of agency, its insistence on viewing individual human history in the context of natural history, its problematization of the natural/synthetic distinction and its consistent utilization of geological imagery. Verstörung is suffused with a remarkable, dark, and twisted proto-Anthropocene aesthetics. It is a post-mortem examination of the world after nature, a Gefühls-und Gesteinsgeschichte that carries the reader into the dark heart of the Austrian countryside.

En undersøgelse af Theodor W. Adornos begreber om naturhistorien, det ikke-identiske etc. i en økokritisk/-filosofisk optik. I foredraget "Die Idee der Naturgeschichte" (1932) plæderer Adorno for en 'naturhistorisk' læsning af modernitetshistorien. Det naturhistoriske blik beror på en eksperimentel 'perspektivændring', der synliggør naturen i kulturen og omvendt. Der er tale om en kritisk praksis, der problematiserer enhver entydig distinktion mellem natur og kultur. Uddrag af naturhistorieforedraget og af Dialektik der Aufklärung (1944) læses i lyset af Timothy Mortons 'dark ecology' og under inddragelse af den tyske forfatter W.G. Sebald. Artiklens ærinde er at kaste lys over en mindre kendt side af Adornos tænkning, bl.a. gennem fremhævelse af Adornos indflydelse på to senere økologisk orienterede forfattere.