The Center for the Humanities of Nature brings together scholars and practitioners from the history of science, science and technology studies, the sociology of science and sustainability, cultural studies, museum studies and the arts. They focus on the politics, histories and cultures of nature through original research and public engagements in the field of knowledge transfer. Their objective is to support critical self-reflection within natural history museums and biodiversity sciences, to develop theoretical and practical tools for examining the relations between nature, culture and politics, and to advance novel collaborative knowledge practices.
The research associates lead and engage in third-party funded research projects, publish articles and books, organise workshops and conferences, provide expert knowledge, curate exhibitions and participate in many national and international networks and associations.
Current thematic focal points encompass the relations and traffics between the Museum für Naturkunde and the Zoologische Garten AG Berlin; the history and presents of the Kunstkammer; the colonial provenance of natural history collection and collecting; the history of collections, exhibitions and museums; the datafication of nature and environments; socio-political contexts of biodiversity; the history and future of museum architectures; and artistic interventions in museum spaces.
The Center for the Humanities of Nature organises a regular colloquium. You can find the current programme here:
- 27.09.23 Niamh Schmidtke, EARTH artist, Berlin and London: "Can you Pull Blood from a Stone?"
- 04.10.23 Andrea Westermann, University of Konstanz: "Entirely New and Very Old Water: Elemental Shifts in the Atacama Mining Desert’s relations with the Pacific, the Andes, and Chile"
- 11.10.23 Marianne Klemun, University of Vienna : "Catalogue, Collection, Communication: Between Mineralogical Knowledge and Appropriation"
- 08.11.23 David Gelsthorpe, Manchester Museum: "Decolonising Manchester’s Minerals and the Ripples of Sector Change"
- 15.11.23 Maddalena Napolitani and Clotilde Savatier, Museo Galileo: "From the Extraction to the Exhibition «Collectible Minerals» (Ecole des Mines’ mineralogy museum, Paris)"
- 22.11.23 Carrie Robbins and Selby Hearth, Bryn Mawr College: "Minerals, Knowledge Production, and Colonial Legacies"
- 29.11.23 Linda Poppe, Survial International and Tahani Nadim, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin: "Extractivist Conservation"
- 06.12.23 Sebastian Felten, University of Vienna: "Rock, Paper, Scissors: Managing Mineral ‘Treasures' in 18th-Century Germany"
You can find previous programmes here:
If you would like to receive information about the colloquium or other events, please send us an email. We will be happy to add you to our (Mailchimp) mailing list, unlisting is possible at any time.
Current research projects
- A Window on Nature and Art
- Museums and Society: Mapping the Social
- Colonial Provenances of Nature
- Guidelines on Dealing with Natural History Collections from Colonial Contexts
- Rocky Pasts?
- User Imaginaries in Digital Natural History
- Civic Digitization
- Research Cluster: OpenHeritage
- Bureau for troubles
Completed research projects
- Provenance research under the spotlight
- Animals as Objects
- Lecture series: Animals as objects?
- The Trained Animal
- Architectural Legacy. The Visual Representation of Natural History
- Art/Nature. Artistic Interventions at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
- New edition 2020: The nature of things
- Cuban Corals in East-Berlin
- Berlin's Brachiosaurus as an Object of Knowledge
- Dinosaurs in Berlin
- Cliff If Felsen
- The image collection of Georg August Zenker in the Historical Division
- Günter Tembrock and the Red Foxes