Ernest Callenbach

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Ernest Callenbach (November 2008)

Ernest William Callenbach (born April 3, 1929 in Williamsport , Pennsylvania , † April 16, 2012 in Berkeley , California ) was an American writer, journalist and university teacher.

Life

Callenbach is considered an ecological thought leader. Callenbach had studied at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne in Paris and obtained a master's degree in English and communication. He taught film history and film theory at the University of California at Berkeley . Until 1991 he was editor of the magazine " Film Quarterly ".

Along with Ursula K. Le Guin and Marge Piercy, Callenbach was considered to be one of the contemporary utopian societies and as such is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as HG Wells , Aldous Huxley and George Orwell . He last lived in Berkeley, California .

The Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg awarded Callenbach an honorary doctorate in 2009.

Novel "Ökotopia"

In 1975 Callenbach designed with his novel "Ecotopia" (German: Ökotopia ) the model of a society that is ecologically and socially responsible. The country “Ökotopia” is formed by three former US states that have split off from the United States. Callenbach describes in great detail all conceivable areas of social, economic, political and private life. Callenbach's utopia is "multicultural, gentle technological, decentralized, women-friendly, poor in hierarchies (but not without hierarchies)," according to the social scientist and writer Rolf Schwendter . The New York Times describes the society described in Ökotopia as "a mixture of Scandinavian socialism and Northern California back-to-the-country ideas, with the custom ... of eating locally grown produce."

Critics such as the left-wing journalist Peter Bierl accuse Callenbach of “Ökotopia” containing “a crude mixture of emancipatory and right-wing ideas”.

After more than twenty rejections of the manuscript by various publishing houses, Callenbach founded Banyan Tree Verlag and published the book there. Bantam Books later became interested in it and ensured further distribution with its own edition.

See also: future literature

"Ente" on Callenbach's résumé

Legend has it that Callenbach was born in Hamburg in 1937, studied politics, history and sociology and was a journalist for the German news magazine Der Spiegel from 1981 to 1995. This " duck " was also found in previous versions of this (German) Wikipedia article. It is probably based on incorrect author information from EVA Rotbuchverlag , one of its German publishers.

bibliography

Ecotopia
  • Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston (1975)
    • German: Ökotopia: Notes and reports by William Weston from 1999. Translated by Reinhard Merker and Ursula Clemeur. Rotbuch # 200, 1978, ISBN 3-88022-200-2 .
  • Ecotopia Emerging (1981)
    • German: A way to Ökotopia: Novel of the genesis of another future. Translated by Christiane Tobschall and David Crawford. Ökotopia-Verlag (Ökotopia # 3), Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-923648-03-0 .
Short stories
  • Chocco (1994, in: Kim Stanley Robinson (Ed.): Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias )
Non-fiction
  • Living Cheaply With Style (1993)
    • German: Living cheaply with style. Translated by Leo Strohm. Rotbuch-Verlag (Rotbuch-Taschenbuch # 1018), Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-88022-463-3 .
  • Ecology: A Pocket Guide (1998)
    • German: Ecology from A - Z: Ein Wegweiser. Translated by Michael Haupt. Rotbuch-Verlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-434-53051-7 .

literature

  • Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn , Wolfgang Jeschke : Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-02453-2 , p. 297.
  • U. Böker: Concept of nature, ecological awareness and utopian thinking. To understand Ernest Callenbach's 'Ecotopia' . In: A. Heller u. a (Ed.): Utopian Thought in American Literature . Tübingen 1988, pp. 69-84.
  • John Clute : Callenbach, Ernest. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition).
  • R. Frye: The Economics of Ecotopia . In: Alternative Futures 3 (1980), pp. 71-81.
  • KT Goldbach: Utopian Music: Music History of the Future in Novels by Bellamy, Callenbach and Huxley . In: F. Viera u. M. Freitas (Ed.) Utopia Matters. Theory, Politics, Literature and the Arts . Porto 2005, pp. 237-243.
  • J. Hermand: Ecotopia . In: KL Berghahn and HU Seeber (eds.): Literary Utopias from More to the Present . Königstein / Taunus 1983, pp. 251-264.
  • Dennis Hevesi: Ernest Callenbach, Author of 'Ecotopia,' Dies at 83 . In: The New York Times . April 27, 2012.
  • Arthur O. Lewis: Callenbach, Ernest . In: Noelle Watson, Paul E. Schellinger: Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers. St. James Press, Chicago 1991, ISBN 1-55862-111-3 , pp. 116 f.
  • U. Meyer: Selling an 'ecological religion'. Strategies of Persuasion in Ernest Callenbach's 'Ecotopia' . In: M. Lotz, M. van der Minde, D. Weidmann (Eds.): From Plato to Global Governance. Designs for human coexistence . Marburg 2010, pp. 253-280.
  • H. Tschachler: Ernest Callenbachs: 'Ecotopia' . In: H. Heuermann u. B.-P. Lange (Ed.): The utopia in Anglo-American literature. Interpretations . Düsseldorf 1984, pp. 328-348.

Web links

proof

  1. ↑ Dennis Hevesi: Ernest Callenbach, Author of 'Ecotopia,' Dies at 83 . In: The New York Times . April 27, 2012.
  2. ^ Background to his lecture " The Hollowing Out of the American Empire " at SWR Tele-Akademie
  3. ↑ Reading tour 2009 ( Memento from September 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ On the history of utopias 2001
  5. ↑ New York Times article on Ökotopia
  6. ↑ Peter Bierl: " And the forests rustle forever ( Memento from April 24, 2005 in the Internet Archive )" - ÖkoLinX 23/1996
  7. ↑ Gert Fehlner: Literary Utopias as Reflection and Critique of American Reality: Selected Examples since the 1960s , Meitingen 1989, p. 123.
personal data
SURNAME Callenbach, Ernest
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Callenbach, Ernest William (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Williamsport , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 2012
Place of death Berkeley , California