Abstract

This essay argues that the assessment of the Anthropocene as a geological period characterized by the irreversible influence of human action on its environments should be supplemented by the consideration of media that shape the notion of history and its temporal structures – and therefore allow for such an assessment in the first place. For this purpose, the text examines practices of paperwork in early modern Germany. Reconstructing Johann Gottfried von Meiern’s concept of a past formed by historical records that can be collected and edited, it considers how practices of editing contributed to an understanding of a mediated past accessible through writing, allowing both for a better perception of the present and the planning of the future. The paper then also looks at practices of administrative writing through the example of Friedrich Karl Moser’s reflections on the contra-signature and examines how these practices helped shaping an environment of paperwork that individuals and institutions had to work through. The essay argues that these media practices shaped the concept of media as an environment that could be used as a resource but also needed to be controlled. Hence, early modern paperwork can be understood as part of the prehistory of discourses that complement the notion of the Anthropocene with the concept of a Mediocene.