Heads above the Water? Writing History in the Anthropocene

The controversial debate about the Anthropocene is also affecting the historical sciences. Demands for new methods, new sources and new narratives are dominating the field. Questions about the significance of nature, the expansion of time and the role of the human actor touch the core of history’s disciplinary self-understanding. Sandra Maß argues that historiography has to change if historians want to retain relevant interpretative power under the conditions of accelerating climate change. They will have to get dirty.

About the speakers

Sandra Maß is Professor of Transnational History of the 19th Century at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). Her recent research projects deal with global family history in the 19th Century and with the Anthropocene.

Krijn Thijs is a historian, affiliated with the Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam (DIA). He has studied History at the VU University in Amsterdam. Thereafter he wrote a thesis at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung in Potsdam about the political usage of Berlin’s city history in The Third Reich, GDR and West-Berlin. Since 2009 he works at the DIA, where he assists the DAAD-Graduiertenkolleg, organises workshops and lectures. Furthermore, he is a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (History, German Studies).

Peter van Dam (moderator) is professor of Dutch history at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the history of civic initiative and activism as well as the history of historiography. His current research revolves around the question how people have tried to make the world more sustainable: Which problems did they identify? And how have they translated their hopes and fears into initiatives to shape their societies?