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Friedrich Ratzel, Lebensraum and the death motif

Abstract:
This intervention explores ‘death’ as an interpretive key both to Friedrich Ratzel's Lebensraum essay and his oeuvre more generally. Ratzel, I argue, was preoccupied with death in a number of ways, including a biogeographical concern with extinction, an ethnological interest in cannibalism and a fascination with the ruins of exterminated civilisations. Indeed, Ratzel grappled with the aesthetics of death itself in the later stages of his life. An appreciation of Ratzel as a thanatological thinker, I argue, opens the door to a recognition of his place not just at the inception of modern geopolitics but as an early thinker of biopolitics too.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.1016/j.jhg.2018.05.007

Authors


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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
SSD
Department:
SOGE
Sub department:
Geography
Oxford college:
St Anne's College
Role:
Author


Publisher:
Elsevier
Journal:
Journal of Historical Geography More from this journal
Volume:
61
Pages:
97-101
Publication date:
2018-07-17
Acceptance date:
2018-05-18
DOI:
ISSN:
0305-7488


Language:
English
Pubs id:
pubs:857854
UUID:
uuid:96e17cb1-3cb2-46c1-b409-14a89738b7f1
Local pid:
pubs:857854
Source identifiers:
857854
Deposit date:
2018-06-17

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