Thursday, 20 March

13.00–13.30: Introduction

  • Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer (Hamburg): Universities, collections and epistemic violence. Some reflections on colonial legacy and higher education
  • Friederike Odenwald (Hamburg): Perspectives from zoological collections for the global histories of colonialism, science and the environment

13.30–14.15: Methodological Inputs

  • Dr. Ina Heumann (Berlin): Provenance and transformation: Applied humanities in natural history collections
  • Dr. Dominik Hünniger (Hamburg): Collection ecologies – Environmental humanities approaches to provenance research

14.15–14.30: Coffee Break

14.30–16.30: Panel 1: Actors and networks of colonial zoological collecting
Panel Host and Commentary: Dr. Katja Kaiser (Berlin)
Panelists:

  • Dr. Gudrun Bucher (Braunschweig): Otto Finsch (1839–1917) – Collector, curator and colonial collaborator
  • Friederike Odenwald (Hamburg): Writing (natural) history through animals – Wilhelm Michaelsen’s colonial collecting expeditions, 1892–1911
  • Qijun Zheng (Paris): Noah’s ark from the Middle Kingdom: Armand David’s missionary-scientific nexus and the colonial epistemology on Chinese beasts

16.30–17.00: Coffee Break

17.00–19.00: Panel 2: Curating, mediatizing and popularizing collected animals
Panel Host and Commentary: Dr. Dominik Hünniger (Hamburg)
Panelists:

  • Sarah Csernay (Bern/Zurich): Zoological popularization and colonial entanglements. The “Animals of Africa” in Bern
  • Silas Edwards (Gießen): Hunting for images: Butterfly collecting and the colour revolution
  • Maximilian Preuss and Linda Knop (Kassel): Between bewilderment, triumph, and shame: Provenances and trajectories of colonial game hunting trophies in German museums

19.30: Dinner

Friday, 21 March

9.00–9.45: Commentary and Discussion: Dr. Katja Kaiser (Berlin)

9.45–10.00 Coffee Break

10.00–12.00: Panel 3: Collecting institutions
Panel Host and Commentary: Dr. Gudrun Bucher (Braunschweig)
Panelists:

  • Callum Fisher (Berlin): Between nature and culture. The dispersed collection of the former Museum Godeffroy
  • Alexandra Raptis (Hamburg): Zoological collections and collecting in the sphere of German colonial government schools
  • Dominik Spörker (Vienna): In the name of science? A collaboration between the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the Hofmuseum in Vienna

12.00–13.00: Lunch Break

13.00–15.00: Panel 4: Epistemologies and Taxonomies
Panel Host and Commentary: Dr. Ina Heumann (Berlin)
Panelists:

  • Mohamed W. Fareed (Cairo/Sharjah): Empire and evolution: Colonial zoological expeditions in Egypt and their legacy
  • Marie C. Schreier (Tübingen): Between animalia and exotica. Sea turtles and giant tortoises in early modern collections
  • Chenchen Yan (Princeton): The becoming Chinese of the Pekingese dog

15.00–15.15: Coffee Break

15.15–16.00: Concluding Discussion