Talk Abstract
Climate change is a major challenge facing cities worldwide, but is this phenomenon and its effect on urban life as recent as it seems? How are climate, weather, and the seasons related and how did they shape the urban experience in the late 19th century compared to today? In this talk, urban environmental historian Dr. Dorothee Brantz will take us to Canadian Winter cities and Central European Summer Resorts („Sommerfrische“) to discuss the impact of seasonal variations on the life of urban dwellers. Through this empirical lens she will also explore the relationship between time and (urban) history.
Zoom Login Info
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/61928514880?pwd=aIDzQNVEbccUeKdrrS2ZugR6ozeJkr.1
Meeting ID: 619 2851 4880
Passcode: 783724
Speaker Bio
Dr. Dorothee Brantz is an urban environmental historian and director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Technische Universität Berlin. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2003. Her areas of research include transatlantic urban history, human-animal relations, and the social theory of time in urban studies. Currently, she is working on a book project about seasons in the city around 1900 and 2000. Her most recent publication on this topic is “Why Study the Seasons?“, which was published in the January 2025 edition of the Journal of Urban History.
About the Gerda Henkel Lecture Series
This lecture is part of the Gerda Henkel Lecture Series, organized by the Pacific Office of the German Historical Institute Washington in partnership with the Gerda Henkel Foundation. The series brings German historians to the West Coast, where they share their latest research and exchange ideas with colleagues and audiences in the United States and Canada.
