Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut

Department Member, Climate & Culture

Other Affiliations: Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Center for Interdisciplinary Memory Research

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title: Hurricanes in New Orleans, 1722-2005. An Urban Biography of Disaster

About

I concluded my M.A. studies in economic, social, and environmental history and English Linguistics at the University of Bern, Switzerland in February 2009 with an MA thesis on The Swiss Reinsurance Company and Fire disasters which was published at Carnegie Publishing/Crucible Books in March 2011.

I have been a doctoral fellow at the Insitute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen (KWI), Germany since November 2008.

My PhD thesis focuses on adaptation in the aftermath of hurricane disasters in New Orleans, 1722-2005. Since adaptation is a broad term I focus on knowledge (i.e. what did people know about hurricanes and how does hurricane science/ meteorology develop?) and technology (how do people employ this knowledge to protect themselves against hurricanes?).


My general research interests are the perceptions and cultural representations of disasters in the past (historical disaster studies); the history of science (in particular of climatology and meteorology); the reconstruction of past climates with the help of written sources (historical climatology); economic and business history with a particular focus on insurance history;risk perception and risk management; early French-American Colonial, Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Climatic History (Louisiana and the Caribbean); the historical generation of 'environmental knowledge' and learning (in particular after disasters); historical human/environment interaction and culturally specific coping and adaptation strategies; systems theory and actor-network theory...

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