Profile
Abstract
André Krebber is an environmental and cultural historian and currently research fellow at the LeipzigLab. He studies societal human-nature-relations from a historical and theoretical perspective. The focus of his work is the production of knowledge and how it retroacts on human-nature relations as well as the particular place of animals in these contexts.
André studied Environmental Humanities at the university of Lüneburg (Germany) and pursued his doctorate in Cultural Studies at the universities of Canterbury (New Zealand) and Oxford (UK). He is an international associate at the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (University of Canterbury) and member of the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe).
Professional career
- 02/2015 - 12/2022
Lecturer in Social and Cultural History (Human-Animal Studies), University of Kassel, Germany - 11/2017 - 08/2018
Susan Manning Fellow am Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, UK - since 01/2023
Research Fellow at LeipzigLab, Leipzig University, Germany
Education
- 10/1999 - 07/2007
Study of Environmental Humanities at the University of Lueneburg (German Diplom comparable to combined BA/MA) - 09/2009 - 06/2015
Doctoral studies in Cultural Studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and Oxford University, UK; Thesis Title: "Raising the Memory of Nature: Nonidentity, Animals and Enlightenment Thought"; Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Philip Armstrong and Prof. Dr. Evgeny Pavlov; Examiner: Prof. Dr. Emily Brady (Edinburgh, UK) and Prof. Dr. Cecilia Novero (Otago, NZ)
André Krebber studies the role of knowledge production in the current environmental crisis and its societal implications from historical and theoretical perspectives. His research focus lies on the conditions for knowing nature alongside the implications of specific knowledge contingents and approaches for the formation of societal relations to nature. He critically examines especially the legacy of the European Enlightenment, which necessarily includes recognition of non-European perspectives. At the moment he is especially interested in the Anthropocene, octopuses, nonhuman language and aesthetics as both approach to knowing nature and characteristic of nature.
His research covers the following areas:
- history and theory of knowledge and ideas with a focus on early modern and modern history
- cultural and social theory in consideration of human-nature relations
- methods of nature research
- environmental aesthetics
- environmental humanities
- human-animal studies
André Krebber teaches history, theory, cultural studies, environmental humanities and human-animal studies.
In addition to foundational introductions to these fields, his teaching addresses European histories of knowledge since early modern times, including in their relation to non-European spaces and cultures, as well as the intersections of history and cultural studies with current environmental questions.
Topics that he has explored in his courses are for example the relationship between science and colonialism at the example of Oceania, the history of materialism, the Anthropocene, the theory of history, or Deleuze and Guattari's Thousand Plateaus. An important aspect in this is also the limits of knowing and the treatment of Others in established knowledge regimes.