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Hello and welcome to my personal homepage!

I’m a historian working on environmental history, maritime history, the history of science, and geology, mostly concentrating on the early modern and modern periods. I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher at the German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History in Bremerhaven, Germany. Here I work on the history of the German Maritime Observatory (die Deutsche Seewarte), which existed in Hamburg from 1875 to 1945.

In July 2020, I successfully defended my dissertation in history and geology at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich / LMU Munich. My doctoral project analyzed the Icelandic Laki fissure eruption of 1783/1784 and its physical, emotional, and intellectual repercussions on the northern hemisphere. The image above shows the Laki fissure as seen from Mount Laki in August 2016. My book, A Mist Connection: An Environmental History of the Laki Eruption of 1783 and Its Legacy, was published in May 2023 and is available open access!

The cover of Katrin Kleemann’s A Mist Connection, 2023.

About

Katrin Kleemann is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institut for Maritime History in Bremerhaven, Germany. She is working on a history of the German Maritime Observatory (Deutsche Seewarte) in Hamburg from 1875 to 1945. This new project is based on maritime history, the history of science, and environmental history. In 2022, Katrin was awarded a Cambridge-Leibniz Museums and Collection Fellowship, which she used to carry out archival research at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in the UK. In 2022, she became an appointed council member of the International Commission for Historical Oceanography (ICHO).

Katrin has earned her doctorate in history and geology from LMU Munich in July 2020. She pursued her doctoral research at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, where she was enrolled in a structured PhD program; the RCC offered an international and interdisciplinary environment that allowed her to combine studies of history as well as geology. In her dissertation, she studied the impacts of the Icelandic Laki fissure eruption of 1783 on the northern hemisphere. This project is highly interdisciplinary in nature, located at the intersection environmental history, cultural history, climate history, the history of science, and geology. Her book, A Mist Connection. An Environmental History of the Laki Eruption of 1783 and Its Legacy, was published with De Gruyter’s Historical Catastrophe Studies series in 2023. The book series is published by Dominik Collet, Christopher Gerrard, und Christian Rohr. A Mist Connection is one of the winning titles in De Gruyter’s Open Access Book Anniversary competition, it was published open access.

The Laki fissure eruption is a fascinating research object as it is not a cone-shaped volcano but a 27-kilometer long fissure in Iceland’s remote highlands that produced the largest amount of lava in the last millennium during its eight months of activity. In Iceland, the eruption caused a famine, which killed about a fifth of the population. Mainland Europe saw many extraordinary natural phenomena during 1783: a heatwave in the summer, followed by three severely cold winters, numerous thunderstorms, earthquakes, but most notably a veil of dust, which lasted for two to three months and had a sulfuric odor. While the population of Europe bore witness to this unusual haze, outside of Iceland, it was unknown that a volcanic eruption was taking place. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, contemporaries speculated about the cause of the haze and tried to explain the unusual natural phenomena of their time with reason. They developed several theories on what could have caused the unusual weather and natural phenomena.

In 2020 and 2021, she was a visiting scholar at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at the LMU Munich in Germany. In the spring of 2021, she was the Barbara S. Mosbacher Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, to conduct research for a project on timekeeping and earthquakes in New England between 1600 and 1800. In the academic year 2020-2021, Katrin was the Envirotech Communications Fellow; Envirotech is a special interest group within the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) that focuses on the interrelationship of technology and nature.

Katrin also has experience in teaching: From 2020 to 2021, Katrin was a postdoctoral scholar at the chair for economic, social, and environmental history in the history department of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg in Germany, here Katrin taught four courses in environmental history, early modern and modern history, as well as gender history.  In the summer term of 2020 and 2021, Katrin taught two courses with Dr. Martin Meiske for the Junior Year in Munich program at LMU Munich / Wayne State University, Michigan, USA, on German environmental history from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century.  During her doctoral studies, Katrin has taught courses on academic blogging to undergraduate and doctoral students at the LMU Schreibzentrum. Additionally, Katrin also has several years of experience teaching German as a foreign language, in a class setting from teaching refugee children in Berlin and in a one-on-one setting, teaching clients from Ireland, the United States, Colombia, Brazil, and South Africa.

Katrin is also passionate about climate history. Since 2016, she has been the social media editor for the Climate History Network and HistoricalClimatology.com. In 2020, Katrin was a co-author on an article that was lead by Prof. Dr. Dagomar Degroot of Georgetown University and published in Nature and it is titled “Towards a rigorous understanding of societal responses to climate change.” The article coined a new term, the “History of Climate and Society” (HCS), which refers to the truly interdisciplinary study of the past impacts of climate change on human populations. The article offers a detailed critique of the field as it has been pursued to date, presents a new research framework for HCS scholars, and shows how the application of that framework can permit new scholarship into the resilience and adaptability of populations that faced the modest, pre-industrial climate changes of the past 2,000 years. The article identifies five “pathways” that allowed populations to endure and even exploit these changes and suggests that those pathways can help us prepare for the future.

From January 2018 to December 2019, Katrin was a recipient of a fellowship (Promotionsstipendium) of the Andrea von Braun Foundation. From 2015 until 2017, Katrin was a research associate at the Environment & Society Portal, where she served as Arcadia’s managing editor and coordinated the Virtual Exhibitions, two peer-reviewed born-digital journals for the environmental humanities. She still serves on the board of Arcadia. From 2011 to 2014, Katrin was a student research assistent to Prof. Dr. Veronika Lipphardt at the “Twentieth Century Histories of Knowledge about Human Variation” research group at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Katrin holds a Master’s degree from the Freie Universität Berlin in early modern history and a Bachelor’s degree from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität of Kiel in history and cultural anthropology.

To get in touch, please send an email.

Image source: Visiting Taormina in Sicily in June 2016, in the background you can see Mount Etna. Photo taken by Jack Walsh, all rights reserved.

Research

I am a historian working on environmental history, climate history, the history of science, and maritime history. I am specifically interested in historical volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, research expeditions, the emergence of oceanography, and how scientific institutions collaborated internationally. 

In this section, you can learn more about my research projects on:

Image source: Annica Müllenberg/DSM.

Publications

Monograph

Kleemann, Katrin. A Mist Connection: An Environmental History of the Laki Eruption of 1783 and Its Legacy. (Historical Catastrophe Studies series.) Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. doi.org/10.1515/9783110731927 (available in print and as an open-access eBook).


Peer-Reviewed Articles

Brázdil, Rudolf, Petr Dobrovolný, Christian Pfister, Katrin Kleemann, Kateřina Chromá, Péter Szabó, and Piotr Olinski, “Weather and climate and their human impacts and responses during the Thirty Years’ War in Central Europe.” Climate of the Past 19, no. 9 (2023): 1863-1890. doi.org/10.5194/cp-2023-49.

White, Sam, Qing Pei, Katrin Kleemann, Lukáš Dolák, Heli Huhtamaa, and Chantal Camenisch. “New Perspectives on Historical Climatology.” In: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 14, no. 1 (2023): e808. doi.org/10.1002/wcc.808.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Active Volcanoes, Active Imaginations: Fire-Spitting Mountains and Subterraneous Roars in the German Territories in the Summer of 1783.” In: Global Environment 15, no. 3 (October 2022): 456-489 (34). doi.org/10.3197/ge.2022.150302.

Stoffel, Markus, Christophe Corona, Michael Sigl, Heli Huhtamaa, Emmanuel Garnier, Samuli Helama, Sébastien Guillet, Francis Ludlow, Arlene Crampsie, Katrin Kleemann, Chantal Camenisch, Joseph McConnell, and Chaochao Gao. “Climatic, Weather and Socio-Economic Conditions Corresponding with the Mid-17th Century Eruption Cluster.” In: Climate of the Past 18 (2022): 1083-1108. doi.org/10.5194/cp-2021-148.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Maximum Latewood Density Analysis Solves Long-Standing Mystery between Temperature Reconstructions and Historical Records.” In: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology 37, no. 4 (2022): e2022PA004444. doi.org/10.1029/2022PA004444.

Degroot, Dagomar, Kevin Anchukaitis, Martin Bauch, Jakob Burnham, Fred Carnegy, Jianxin Cui, Kathryn de Luna, Piotr Guzowski, George Hambrecht, Heli Huhtamaa, Adam Izdebski, Katrin Kleemann, Emma Moesswilde, Naresh Neupane, Timothy Newfield, Qing Pei, Elena Xoplaki, and Natale Zappia. “Towards a Rigorous Understanding of Societal Responses to Climate Change.” In: Nature 591 (2021): 539–550. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03190-2.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Living in the Time of a Subsurface Revolution: The 1783 Calabrian Earthquake Sequence.” Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Summer 2019), no. 30. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

Kleemann, Katrin. “‘Moby Dick’ in the Rhine: How a Beluga Whale Raised Awareness of Water Pollution in West Germany.” Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia Spring 2018, no. 6. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.  doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8222.


Chapters in Books

Kleemann, Katrin. “Visualisierungen des Meeres in den Segelhandbüchern und Atlanten der Deutschen Seewarte, 1882-1910.” In: Medialitäten des Meeres, edited by Ruth Schilling and Dennis Niewerth. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2024. (forthcoming)

Kleemann, Katrin. “Aus der Welt zurück nach Deutschland: Georg von Neumayer, die Deutsche Seewarte und Flaschenpostsendungen.” In: Deutsche Schiffahrt 2 (2023): 11–15. (forthcoming)

Kleemann, Katrin (author) and Daniel Dutra Coelho Braga (translator). “Skaftáreldar: Rios, Administração Central Dinarmarquesa E Sobrevivência Durante a Erupção Do Laki Na Islândia Em 1783.” (“Skaftáreldar: Rivers, the Danish Central Administration, and Survival during the 1783 Laki Eruption in Iceland.”) In: Rios de História: O Passado em Caminhos Fluviais (Rivers of History: The Past in River Paths), edited by Wesley Oliveira Kettle and Gabriel Pereira de Oliveira. Maceió: Editora Olyver, 2023. (forthcoming)

Kleemann, Katrin and Admire Mseba. “Hazards and Disasters: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Droughts, Floods, and Locusts.” In: Routledge Handbook of Environmental History, edited by Emily O’Gorman, Mark Carey, Sandra Swart, and Willian San Martín. Abingdon: Routledge, 2024.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Von Island bis ins Wendland: Die Auswirkungen des Ausbruchs der Lakispalte von 1783–1784.” In: Hannoversches Wendland 20 (2020–2023), edited by Wolfgang Jürries, 23–48. Lüchow, 2023.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Eruptions, Earthquakes & Emissions: Visualizing the Planet’s Heartbeat.” In: Ant Spider Bee. Chronicling Digital Transformations in Environmental Humanities, edited by Kimberly Coulter, Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, and Finn Arne Jørgensen, 161–165. Munich: Spider & Cloud, 2021.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Flyover Country App, or What Do Airplanes and Dinosaurs Have in Common?” In: Ant Spider Bee. Chronicling Digital Transformations in Environmental Humanities, edited by Kimberly Coulter, Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, and Finn Arne Jørgensen, 172–177. Munich: Spider & Cloud, 2021.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Telling Stories of a Changed Climate: The Laki Fissure Eruption and the Interdisciplinarity of Climate History.” In: Communicating the Climate: From Knowing Change to Changing Knowledge, edited by Katrin Kleemann and Jeroen Oomen, RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2019, no. 4, 33–42. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8823.

Kleemann, Katrin and Jeroen Oomen: “Preface: Communicating the Climate. From Knowing Change to Changing Knowledge.” In: Communicating the Climate: From Knowing Change to Changing Knowledge, edited by Katrin Kleemann and Jeroen Oomen, RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2019, no. 4, 7-14. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8822.



Edited Volumes 

Kleemann, Katrin, ed. “Ecopolis München 2019.” Environment & Society Portal, Virtual Exhibitions 2020, no. 2. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/9005.

Kleemann, Katrin, and Jeroen Oomen, eds. “Communicating the Climate: From Knowing Change to Changing Knowledge,” RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2019, no. 4. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8822.


Encyclopedia Articles

Kleemann, Katrin. Encyclopedia of the Environment, “The Laki Fissure Eruption, 1783-1784.” Grenoble: Encyclopedia of the Environment, 2020. Online ISSN 2555-0950. https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/en/society/laki-fissure-eruption-1783-1784/.  (in English)

Kleemann, Katrin. L’Encyclopédie de l’environnement, “L’éruption de la fissure Laki, 1783-1784.” Grenoble: Encyclopédie de l’environnement, 2020. Online ISSN 2555-0950. https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/societe/leruption-de-la-fissure-laki-1783-1784/.  (in French)


Conference Posters

Kleemann, Katrin. Impacts of the Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783 on North America. Presented at the 3rd VICS Meeting (Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society) 2018, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA. doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.18263.78245. 

Kleemann, Katrin. The Laki Eruption and Strange Weather Phenomena in the German Territories in the Summer of 1783. Presented at the 8th Biennial European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) Conference 2015 in Versailles, France.


Conference and Workshop Reports

Sam White, Dominik Collet, Katrin Kleemann, and Nicolas Maughan: “Climate and Conflict Revisited: Perspectives from Past and Present.” In: Past Global Changes Magazine 31, no. 2 (2023): 122. doi.org/10.22498/pages.31.2.122.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Tagungsbericht: Research Expeditions to India and the Indian Ocean in Early Modern and Modern Times.” In: H-Soz-Kult, 23 March 2023.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Communicating the Climate: How to Communicate Scholarly Findings on Climate and Weather in a Controversial Time.” In: Seeing the Woods, 26 September 2017.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Knowing Nature: The Changing Foundations of Environmental Knowledge. Conference Report.” In: Seeing the Woods, 22 June 2017.


Book Reviews

Kleemann, Katrin. Review of Droughts, Floods, and Global Climatic Anomalies in the Indian Ocean World, by Philip Gooding (ed.). In: H-Water, H-Net Reviews (November 2023). https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=58402

Kleemann, Katrin. Review of Cataclysms: An Environmental History of Humanity, by Laurent Testot. In: The Holocene (September 2021). doi.org/10.1177/09596836211043654.

Kleemann, Katrin. Review of Volcanoes in Eighteenth-Century Europe: An Essay in Environmental Humanities, by David McCallam. In: English Historical Review 136, no. 580 (June 2021): 732–734. doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceab074.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Thriving in the Face of Climate Change–Lessons from the Little Ice Age.” Review of The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560-1720, by Dagomar Degroot. In: H-Environment Roundtable Reviews 8, no. 6,  12 December 2018.

Kleemann, Katrin. Review of Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming’s Past, by Joshua P. Howe.  In: Reviews in History, 7 February 2018. (Review no. 2220.) doi.org/10.14296/RiH/2014/2220.


Translations

Welt-kult-ur-sprung – World Origin of Culture. Edited by Georg Hiller, and Stefanie Kölbl. Translated by Katrin Kleemann, and Iris Trautmann. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2016.


Blog Articles

Kleemann, Katrin “Shaken Awake: The Nighttime Earthquake of 1783.” HCA Graduate Blog, 25 October 2023.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Archivalie des Monats: Der Fesselballonaufstieg der ersten Deutschen Antarktischen Expedition.” Blog of the German Maritime Museum, 1 September 2023.

Kleemann, Katrin and Nils Theinert. “The Library and Collections at the German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History in Bremerhaven.” Blog for History of Oceanography on the website of the International Commission of the History of Oceanography, 4 August 2023.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Advice for Planning and Conducting Archival Research.” ActiveHistory.ca, 9 September 2020. (Cross-posted from Environmental History Now.) 

Kleemann, Katrin. “Field Notes: Advice for Planning and Conducting Archival Research.” Environmental History Now, 9 September 2020. 

Kleemann, Katrin. “CO2 emissions from human activities have imbalanced the atmospheric carbon budget, significantly contributing to climate change, contrary to online claim.” Claim Review for Climate Feedback, 11 February 2020.

Kleemann, Katrin. “A Change of Perspective: Visiting the Places of Your Research.” Environmental History Now, 9 September 2019.

Kleemann, Katrin (author) and Hannah Davies (editor). “Beyond Tectonics: How the tectonic events of 1783 were perceived by the population of Europe.Blog of the Tectonics and Structural Geology (TS) Division of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), 4 September 2019.

Kleemann, Katrin. “29 November 1783: The Night the US East Coast Was Awoken by ‘a Small Shock of an Earthquake’.Environmental History Now, 10 September 2018.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Environmental History or Environmentally Minded History? New Scholars Second Meeting.” NiCHE – Network in Canadian History and Environment | Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement, The Otter, 5 March 2018.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Volcanoes, Climate Change, and Society: History and Future Prospects.” HistoricalClimatology.com Blog, 23 November 2017.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Speculating About the Weather: The Unusual Dry Fog of 1783.” NiCHE – Network in Canadian History and Environment | Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement, The Otter, 2 October 2017.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Snapshot: Where Geology Meets Early Modern History. A Millstone Quarry in Upper Bavaria.Seeing the Woods, 19 June 2017.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Eruptions, Earthquakes, & Emissions: Visualizing the Planet’s Heartbeat.Ant Spider Bee, 6 February 2017.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Watch your Step! Moss Conservation in Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland.Seeing the Woods, 18 October 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Snapshot: Beach Litter in a Sustainable Exhibition. Seeing the Woods, 7 June 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Flyover Country App, or What Do Airplanes and Dinosaurs Have in Common?Ant Spider Bee, 4 May 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Worldview: Earthquakes in Munich?Seeing the Woods, 20 April 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration Through Letters—A New Virtual Exhibition.Seeing the Woods, 6 April 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Environmental Geology in Spain – From 21st Century Pollution to Fossil Atolls.Environmental Studies Certificate Program Blog, 28 February 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Environmental Geology in Spain – Geology Explains Coral Remains on a Hilltop.Environmental Studies Certificate Program Blog, 27 February 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin, and Maya Schmitt. “Snapshot: Distant Transformations.Seeing the Woods, 22 February 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Environmental Geology in Spain – Retracing a Past Volcanic Eruption.Environmental Studies Certificate Program Blog, 21 February 2016.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Snapshot: Earthquake Simulation at the Museum Mensch und Natur.Seeing the Woods, 9 February 2016.


Other Online Publications

Kleemann, Katrin. “Flood Marks in Würzburg”, “Ringing the Church Bells Against Bad Weather: The So-Called Schillerglocke”, “The Installation of Lightning Rods: The So-Called Hemmer’scher Fünfspitz”, “The Main Flood of 1784 in Würzburg.” In: Weathered History: The Material Side of Past Climate Change (Online Exhibition), curated by Martin Bauch and Diana Lucia Feitsch, 2021.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Lernpapier ‘A Mist Connection: The Laki Eruption and Its Legacy.” Andrea von Braun Stiftung, 9 August 2020.

Kleemann, Katrin. “Living in the Time of a Subsurface Revolution: The 1783 Calabrian Earthquake Sequence.” #ASEH2018TWEETS Twitter Conference presented by the ASEH Graduate Caucus, co-sponsored by the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE) and the NiCHE New Scholars Committee, 9 March 2018.

Kleemann, Katrin and Sophie Mibus. “Altbrief, Brief mit Briefinhalt an Prinz Xaver von Sachsen in Dresden, betr. Beschwerde von Raphael und Michael Hertz aus Schleusingen.Online Collection of the Museum für Kommunikation Berlin 2014.


Media Interviews

Interview with Phillipp Steiner on “Seit 125 Jahren Einblicke in die Tiefsee,“ Nordsee Zeitung, 21 October 2023.

Interview with Philipp Cavert on “Faszination Flaschenpost: Zwischen Seemannsromantik und Fernweh,” Das Journal, NDR Kultur, 4 August 2023. You can listen to the interview here (in German).

Interview with Ulrich Land on “Eine Geschichte der vier Jahreszeiten – Der Herbst,” Zeitfragen, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 19 October 2022. You can listen to the episode here (in German).

Podcast episode “Was wäre gewesen? Vulkanausbruch 1783 – live medial dabei? Der Podcast über Kontrafaktische Geschichte mit Katrin Kleemann,” Was wäre gewesen? Der Podcast über Kontrafaktische Geschichte mit Dr. Charlotte Lerg und Georgios Chatzoudis, 14 July 2022. You can listen to the episode here (in German).

Interview with Ulrich Land on “Eine Geschichte der vier Jahreszeiten – Der Sommer,” Zeitfragen, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 13 July 2022. You can listen to the episode here (in German).

Interview with Ulrich Land on “Eine Geschichte der vier Jahreszeiten – Der Frühling,” Zeitfragen, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 23 March 2022. You can listen to the episode here (in German).

Interview with Lotta Drügemöller on the history of the German Maritime Observatory. Lotta Drügemöller. “Orte des Wissens. Der Schatz der Seeleute. Von Wetterkarten und Meeresströmungen: Die Deutsche Seewarte machte aus Daten Wissen.” TAZ / Die Tageszeitung, 7 February 2022. (in German)

Interview with Annica Müllenberg (German Maritime Museum), which showcases my work at the German Maritime Museum. Annica Müllenberg. “Environmental Historian Researches the German Maritime Observatory” (in English) and “Umwelthistorikerin forscht zur Deutschen Seewarte” (in German). German Maritime Museum Website, 27 January 2022.

Interview with Ulrich Land on “Eine Geschichte der vier Jahreszeiten – Der Winter,” Zeitfragen, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 12 January 2022. You can listen to the episode here (in German).

Interview with Claudia Füßler on the publication of the Nature article “Towards a Rigorous Understanding of Societal Responses to Climate Change.” Claudia Füßler, “Wie sich frühere Gesellschaften klimatischen Veränderungen anpassten.” Online Magazin: Forschen & Entdecken, University of Freiburg, 19 November 2021. (in German)

Reviewer for Climate Feedback on the following analysis: “CO2 Coalition Sponsored Article in ‘The Washington Times’ Presents List of False and Misleading Statements about the Impacts of CO2 and Climate Change,” edited by Nikki Forrester. Climate Feedback, 5 May 2021.

Presentation for Environmental History Now‘s “Celebrating our Graduate” series, 31 March 2021. “Katrin Kleemann on her dissertation ‘A Mist Connection: The Laki Eruption and Its Legacy.'” You can watch the presentation here on YouTube.

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Rieger on “Tier und Wir: Moby Dick im Rhein,” Plus Eins, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 25 October 2020.


Image source: The image was taken from pexels.com and is licensed under a CC0 license.

Talks

Upcoming:


TBA



Past:


7 July 2023

Talk: From Antarctica to the Berlin Zoo: The Journey of the Seven Penguins Aboard the Schwabenland in 1938/1939. Workshop “Animal Histories: Perspectives from Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific,” Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.



18 June 2023

Talk: Flaschenpostsendungen. “Highlight am Sonntag,” German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institut for Maritime History, Bremerhaven, Germany. More information can be found here.


16 June 2023

Talk: Animals Aboard Research Expeditions: Imagination and Practice. Workshop “DFG-Network Modern Expeditions,” German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History, Bremerhaven, Germany.


1-2 June 2023

Talk: Vulkanausbrüche, Teleconnections und Klimawandel: Vom Ausbruch der Lakispalte 1783 bis zur Eruption des Krakatau 1883 und darüber hinaus. Conference “Reporting Climate Change, 1800-2022. Wissen, Medialität & Praktiken des populären Klimawandeldiskurses,” Online conference, University of Göttingen, Germany.


22 May 2023

Book Talk: A Mist Connection. “Environmental Humanities Book Talk Series,” The Greenhouse, Center for Environmental Humanities, University of Stavanger, Norway. More information and a video recording of the book talk can be found here.


11 May 2023

Talk: Weather and Climate and Their Human Impacts and Responses During the Thirty Years’ War in Central Europe (with Rudolf Brázdil). CRIAS Workshop “Climate and Conflict Revisited. Perspectives from the Past and Present,” University of Oslo, Norway, 11–12 May 2023. More information and the conference program can be found here and here.


19 February 2023

Talk: Die Deutsche Seewarte. “Highlight am Sonntag,” German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institut for Maritime History, Bremerhaven, Germany. More information can be found here.


17 February 2023

Invited Speaker: Forschungsexpeditionen und die Deutsche Seewarte. “Tag der Wissenschaft: Forschen und Ausstellen am Deutschen Schifffahrtsmuseum (DSM),” German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institut for Maritime History, Bremerhaven, Germany. More information can be found here.


24 November 2022

Invited Speaker: A Peculiar Haze, a Sulphuric Smell, and Bloodred Sunsets: The Effects of the 1783-1784 Laki Eruption on Europe. Cambridge Volcanology Seminar series, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. The abstract and more information can be found here.


3-4 November 2022

Workshop: “Research Expedition to India and the Indian Ocean in Early Modern and Modern Times,” German Maritime Museum/Leibniz Institute for Maritime History, Bremerhaven, Germany.

More info can be found here.


6 October 2022

Invited Speaker: Ocean History between Germany and Australia: Georg Neumayer, the Flagstaff Observatory in Melbourne and the German Maritime Observatory in Hamburg. The Centre for Environmental History’s new seminar series “Environmental Exchanges”, the seminar’s theme in 2022 is Ocean Histories, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. The abstract and registration can be found here.


29-30 September 2022

Talk: Die Entdeckung, Erforschung und Vermessung der Tiefsee: Raumvorstellungen über die Meere von 1850 bis heute. “Räume in der Internationalen Geschichte: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.” Jahrestagung der AG Internationale Geschichte, Berlin, Germany.


7-9 September 2022

Talk: Environment and Climate in a Blue Museum: The German Maritime Museum/Leibniz Institute for Maritime History. Workshop “Green Transitions in Blue Museums.” University of Stavanger, Norway.


30 July 2022

Talk: Logbücher, Flaschenpost und Forschungsschifffahrt: Die Entstehung der Deutschen Seewarte 1875. “Wissen um 11.” Haus der Wissenschaft, Bremen, Germany. More info can be found here.


19 July 2022

Roundtable discussion: The German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History. “Oceans in Museums” Roundtable, Colloquium of the History of Ocean Science, Technology and Medicine. More info can be found here.


14-16 July 2022

Pre-circulated paper: Earthquakes in New England from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. Natural Catastrophes in the United States — Making Sense of Risks and Vulnerability conference at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg University, Germany.


7 July 2022

Talk: Volcanic Pollution in Western Europe in the Summer of 1783. Biennial European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) conference in Bristol, England, UK.


6 July 2022

Talk: Active Volcanoes, Active Imagination: Fire-Spitting Mountains and Subterraneous Roars in the German Territories in 1783. Biennial European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) conference in Bristol, England, UK.


23-25 June 2022

Talk: Expeditions to Iceland and German Maritime Expeditions. German Research Council-Network meeting “Modern Expeditions: Politics, Actors, and Epistemologies of Research Expeditions from the 19th Century Onward”, Forschungskolleg Transkulturelle Studien Gotha, Germany.


13-16 June 2022

Pre-circulated paper: „Die ganze Luft roch daselbst wie lauter Schwefel.“ Luftverschmutzung und Vegetationsschäden in Europa im Sommer 1783 nach dem Ausbruch der Lakispalte auf Island. Sommeruniverstität “Umweltgeschichte” / Summer University “Environmental History” / l’université d’été « L’histoire environnementale », German Historical Institute Paris, France.


24 May 2022

Invited speaker: Wissen über das Meer im späten 19. Jahrhundert: Die Entstehung der Deutschen Seewarte im internationalen Kontext. Kolloquium “Gesellschaft – Wissen – Umwelt” von Prof. Dr. Eleonora Rohland, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

More info can be found here.


21 May 2022

Talk: Von Island bis ins Wendland: Die Auswirkungen des Ausbruchs der Lakispalte 1783. Frühjahrstagung des Heimatkundlichen Arbeitskreises Lüchow-Dannenberg e.V. HALD zum Thema “Klimawandel/ Extremwetter/ Naturkatastrophen”, 21 May 2022.


7 April 2022

Invited speaker: The Physical and Societal Impacts of Volcanic Eruptions: The Case of the 1783 AD Laki Eruption. Geoscience Information for Teachers Workshop (GIFT) on “How the Planet Shapes History: Geosciences, Human Society, and Civilisations” at the European Geosciences Union’s conference, 4-8 April 2022.

You can find more information here.


8 March 2022

Invited Speaker: The Icelandic Laki eruption of 1783: Historical Mitigation of Risk and Disaster Management Today, followed by a discussion with Elisa Sevilla (Tomorrow’s Cities Quito) and Prof. Dr. Greg Bankoff (University of Hull) as the discussant on the topic of What causes disasters: Historical process at the Cambridge Disaster Research Network’s seminar, Cambridge, UK.

You can find more information here. You can watch a recording of this talk here.


17 Febraury 2022

Talk: Voyage for Knowledge. The Birth of Oceanography and the German Maritime Observatory, 1875-1945. Prof. Dr. Marie-Theres Fojuth’s Maritime History seminar at the University of Stavanger, Norway.


25 January 2022

Talk: Earthquakes in New England, 1600-1800: Extraordinary Natural Events Shine a Light on Timekeeping and Recordkeeping Practices in Early America. Environmental History Seminar at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

You can find more information here.


30 September 2021

Talk: Understanding the Sea: A History of the Flagstaff Observatory for Geophysics, Magnetism and Nautical Science in Melbourne, 1858-1864. German Association for Australian Studies’ conference, “Australian Seascapes,” Trier Unviersity, Germany, 27 September-2 October 2021.


13 September 2021

Keynote: The Laki Eruption of 1783 and Its Legacy. Combining Cultural History and Geology Approaches for Environmental History. Workshop, “Interdisciplinary and Mixed-Methods Approaches in Environmental History: Potentials and Challenges,” Aeschi near Spiez, Canton of Bern, Switzerland, 13-15 September 2021.


25 August 2021

Talk: Earthquakes and Timekeeping Practices in New England, 1600-1800. JCB Fellow’s Talk | John Carter Brown Library, Providence, RI, USA.

You can find more information here.


7 July 2021

Invited speaker: Historical Catastrophe Studies – Historische Katastrophenforschung: A New Book Series for a Dynamic Field. International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK.

More information on this event can be found here.

You can watch a video of the event here.


1 July 2021

Pre-circulated paper: The Interdisciplinary Nature-Induced Disaster Index: Eldgjá, Laki, and How to Evaluate Historical Sources in an Interdisciplinary Framework (together with Stephan Ebert). Forschungskolleg Franken, Institut für Fränkische Landesgeschichte in Thurnau, Germany.


18 June 2021

Invited speaker: Icelandic Volcanism and Its Impacts on Europe: Lessons from the Past for the Future. Onine Brainstorming Workshop: Environmental History & Public Policy | Princeton- Max Planck Advisory Panel on Environmental History and Policy (EnvHist4P).

You can find the program here.


27 April 2021

Pre-circulated paper: The Interdisciplinary Nature-Induced Disaster Index: Eldgjá, Laki, and How to Evaluate Historical Sources in an Interdisciplinary Framework (together with Stephan Ebert). Prof. Dr. Gerrit Schenk’s Colloquium “Neues aus dem Mittelalter,” Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.


25 November 2020

Roundtable discussion: Rivers in Colonial Times | Mesa redonda – Caminhos fluviais nos tempos coloniais. Conference “Seminário Amazônico de História e Natureza: Rios de Historia,” Brazil, 24-27 November 2020.

More information can be found here (in Portuguese).

You can watch the entire roundtable discussion here.


20 November 2020

Workshop: Blogging in der Praxis – Wie präsentiere ich meine Forschung oder meine beruflichen Projekte im Internet? Praxisbüro, Fakultät 13, LMU Munich, Germany.

Find more info here.


28-29 August 2020

Paper: Volcanic Pollution in the Summer of 1783 Impacted Human Health and Vegetation in Western Europe. At an online workshop “Flows, Histories, and Politics of Pollution in Europe (17th–20th century)” at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, Germany, organized by Andrei Vinogradov and Prof. Dr. Julia Herzberg.


16-19 June 2020

Paper:Die ganze Luft roch daselbst wie lauter Schwefel.” Luftverschmutzung und Vegetationsschäden in Europa im Sommer 1783 nach dem Ausbruch der Lakispalte auf Island. Summer university “Umweltgeschichte in Frankreich und Deutschland: aktuelle Probleme und Zukunftsperspektiven,” organized by the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP/IHA) and tthe École des hautes études en sciences sociales (CHR-GRHEN) in Paris, France. (This summer university was postponed due to COVID-19).


4 June 2020

Talk: Aktive Vulkane, aktive Vorstellungskraft. Vier ‘Vulkanausbrüche’ in den Deutschen Territorien im Sommer 1783. Prof. Dr. Melanie Arndt’s Colloquium at the Historisches Seminar, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany.


8 May 2020

Workshop, prepared and conducted: Academic Blogging: How to Present Your Research Online. LMU Schreibzentrum, Munich, Germany.

Find the course description here.


10 January 2020

Guest lecture: The Imagination of Climate Change in the Past: An Example from Iceland. Dr. Katie Ritson’s Hauptseminar, “‘Klimakrise’ in Literatur und Film” at the Institut für Nordische Philologie, LMU Munich, Germany.


16 December 2019

Talk:  Merkwürdige Nebel, entsetzliche Donnerwetter, erschreckliche Erdbeben und feuerspeiende Berge in Europa im Sommer 1783. Eine Umweltgeschichte des Vulkanausbruchs der isländischen Lakispalte. Prof. Dr. Arndt Brendecke’s Colloquium (Oberseminar Frühe Neuzeit) at the Historisches Seminar, LMU Munich, Germany.


20-25 August 2019

Roundtable Discussion: Future Directions of Climate History. 10th Biennial European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) Conference in Tallinn, Estonia.


13-16 April 2019

Talk: A Mist Connection: The Icelandic Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783. 4th VICS Meeting (Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society), University of Cambridge, England, UK.


26 October 2018

TalkThe Winter of 1783/1784 in Europe and North America. Little Ice Age Lessons Workshop, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., USA.


25-28 September 2018

Talk: “Also haben wir dennun in unserem lieben Deutschland auch einen feuerspeyenden Berg.” Der trockene Nebel von 1783 und die Vielfalt der zeitgenössischen Erklärungsversuche. Conference “Gespaltene Gesellschaften,” 52. Deutscher Historikertag, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany.


26 June 2018

Talk: “A Violent Revolution of Planet Earth”: Geological Ideas and Extraordinary Phenomena in the Aftermath of the 1783 Laki Fissure Eruption in Prof. Dr. Anke Friedrich’s and Sara Carena’s Colloquium “Advanced Active Tectonics” at the LMU’s Geology Department, Munich, Germany.


25-27 May 2018

Talk: Discrepancy Between Contemporary Descriptions and Temperature Reconstructions: The Summer of 1783 in the German Territories. Conference “Societal and Environmental Change in Historical Perspective: Recent Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Research,” Princeton University, New Jersey, USA.

Click here for more information.


16 February 2018

Workshop, prepared and conducted: Academic Blogging. LMU Schreibzentrum, Munich, Germany.

Find the course description here.


13 January 2018

Talk and Poster Presentation: Impacts of the Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783 on North America. 3rd VICS Meeting (Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society), Labratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Click here to view the poster.


17 October 2017

Invited Talk: Der Ausbruch der Lakispalte und die Geschichte der Geologie: Die lange Suche nach dem Ursprung des trockenen Nebels von 1783. Prof. Dr. Christian Rohr’s Colloquium at the University of Bern, Switzerland.


18 August 2017

Workshop: Communicating the Climate: How to Communicate Scholarly Findings on Climate and Weather in a Controversial Time, Rachel Carson Center, Munich, Germany. Jointly organized and convened with Jeroen Oomen.

Here you can find the workshop’s program and a conference report.


18 July 2017

Discussion: Participating as a digital humanities specialist, giving students feedback on their digital exhibitions, Dr. Charlotte Lerg’s seminar “Digital History Project: The Cold War in Munich,” Amerikahaus, LMU Munich, Germany.


06 July 2017

Invited Talk: Klimageschichte und die Lakispalteneruption von 1783. Prof. Dr. Julia Herzberg’s Seminar “Kultur- und Wissensgeschichte des Klimas,” LMU Munich, Germany.


30 June 2017

Talk: A Volcanic Eruption Knows No Borders: The Laki Fissure Eruption and the Dry Fog of 1783. 9th Biennial European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) Conference in Zagreb, Croatia.


25 May 2017

Pre-Circulated Paper: Lifting the Fog of Ignorance: Europe and the Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783. Knowing Nature: The Changing Foundations of Environmental Knowledge at the Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.


10 May 2017

Talk: Lifting the Fog of Ignorance: The Icelandic Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783. 5th PAGES OSM (Past Global Changes – Open Science Meeting) in Zaragoza, Spain.

Click here to watch the presentation.


27 May 2016

Talk: A Strategy to Cope with Extreme Weather: The Gleichberg and Cottaberg “Eruptions” of 1783. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Conference “Anthropology, Weather and Climate Change” at the British Museum, London, UK.


24 February 2016

Talk: Volcanic Eruptions and Cultures: A History of the Icelandic Laki Fissure Eruption of 1783. Doktorandentag, Rachel Carson Center / LMU Munich, Germany.


17 February 2016

Talk: Geology Meets History. An Environmental History of the Laki Fissure Eruption (1783). Geological Mapping Course for Geology Bachelor Students / Environmental Geology Field Trip in Las Negras/Almeria, Spain.


05 November 2015

Talk: The Laki Fissure Eruption and Strange Weather Phenomena in the German Territories in the Summer of 1783. 4th CITCEM Conference in Porto, Portugal.


18 September 2015

Talk: The Gleichberg “Eruption” of 1783 Revisited. Science and Technology Studies Workshop, University College Freiburg, Germany.


03 July 2015

Talk and Poster Presentation: The Laki Eruption and Strange Weather Phenomena in the German Territories in the Summer of 1783. 8th Biennial European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) Conference in Versailles, France.

Click here to view the poster.


29 January 2014

Talk: The Laki Fissure Eruption and the Dry Fog of 1783: A Nature-Induced Disaster Event During the Little Ice Age. Lipphardt Group Seminar Series, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.


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