Historian working at the intersection of the humanities, science and art.
Researcher | Curator | Editor
Upcoming activities
tba
Recent talks
“Plants and multispecies history. New Perspectives on Research and Storytelling”, Université de Genève, 25.10.2023. https://www.unige.ch/lettres/istge/unites/hco/actualites/plants-and-multispecies-history-new-perspectives-research-and-storytelling
Introduction and comments for the panel “Reporting African environmental history: past, present and future”, Different World Session co-convened with Luregn Lenggenhager, European Society for Environmental History Conference, Berne, 22-26.08.2023.
“Tracing futures in Ruth Weiss’s biography, work and archive”, presentation in the panel The Future in African Media”, co-convened with Cassandra Mark-Thiesen”, European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) 2023, Cologne, 31.05. - 3.06.2023.
“A sound archive ethnography: biographical artefacts, acoustic portraits and echoes of absent recordings in the archive of journalist Ruth Weiss”, Liberia Workshop, Junior Research Group Team Meeting, University of the West Indies, Barbados, 14.02.2023.
Roundtable in the exhibition of Kapwani Kiwanga with Chanelle Adams, Andile Magengelele and Percy Zvomuya, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, 09.11.2022.
“A Planetary History of Botanical Gardens and Parks,” talk with Luciano Concheiro San Vicente, in the Political Ecologies Seminar Series “Thiniking with Plants and Animals,” Université de Lausanne, Institut de Géographie et Durabilité, virtual, 08.11.2022.
“Mediating the Ruth Weiss archives,” 3rd Annual Cluster Conference of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth/Rhodes University/online, 08.07.2022.
“Journalists as historians: A case study of Ruth Weiss’ production of southern African history,” Meeting of the African Studies Association in Africa, University of Cape Town/online, 15.04.2022.
“Revisiting empire in a Southern African plant collection,” HSS 2021 Annual Meeting, online, 19.11.2021.
“The Jaftha’s Flower Farm: caring for roots and routes in a Cape Town hinterland,” conference “Hinterlands: A Project in the Rural, Literary and Environmental Humanities,” Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) and Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), online, 3-4.06.2021.
Recent exhibitions and performances
Exhibition with The Centre for Plant Interpretation, "You may find yourself in a haunted space”, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, 04.06. - 09.07.2023. Talk 18.06.2023, 14h00. https://ausstellungsraum.ch/veranstaltungen/you-may-find-yourself-in-a-haunted-space/
“Talking Plants,” installation and performance, ICA Live Art Festival, 02.04.2022, Cape Town.
Recent academic publications
“Arrangements for an African Anthropocene: Multispecies storytelling at the Adderley Street flower market in Cape Town,” in Ida Bencke and Jørgen Bruhn (eds.), Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices (Punctum Books, 2022), 151-173. https://punctumbooks.com/titles/multispecies-storytelling-in-intermedial-practices
“Radical Stories in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden: Emergent Ecologies’ Challenges to Colonial Narratives and Western Epistemologies,” Environmental Humanities (2021) 13(1): 66-92. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-8867208
With Phakamani m’Afrika Xaba, “Decolonising Kirstenbosch: confronting the violent past of South Africa’s botanical gardens,” The Architectural Review (February 2021), 40-44. https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/decolonising-kirstenbosch-confronting-the-violent-past-of-south-africas-botanical-gardens
Recent media contributions
“Green Shadows in the Kiya Kiya Republic: Money-spitting snakes and heat in Farai Mudzingwa’s climate fiction,” newZWire, 24.09.2022, https://newzwire.live/book-digest-green-shadows-in-the-kiya-kiya-republic-money-spitting-snakes-and-heat-in-farai-mudzingwas-climate-fiction
With Luciano Concheiro San Vicente and Phakamani m’Afrika Xaba, “Botanical gardens re-imagined go beyond simply displaying plants,” Mail & Guardian Thought Leader, 13.09.2020. https://thoughtleader.co.za/botanical-gardens-re-imagined-go-beyond-simply-displaying-plants/
Recent podcasts
“‘A sense of moving with the news’: The journalism education of Ruth Weiss,” podcast for the online exhibition of the conference “Métiers et Professions des médias” (cancelled due to Covid-19), University of Lausanne, 01.07.2021. https://catima.unil.ch/sphm2020/fr/contributions/28604.
