On the way to ecological statehood? The agricultural and forestry history of the 18th century under the sign of the Anthropocene

Lecture by Dr. Richard Hölzl (Kassel/Göttingen)

In this contribution to the lecture series, Richard Hölzl will explain and critically classify the scientific perspective of the Anthropocene and use this concept to discuss the interdependence of humans and the environment in the context of the 18th century. Using examples from agricultural and forestry history - debates about forest privatization, draining wetlands, agricultural insurance - we will show how the 18th century state attempted to regulate human-environment relations.

This is an event organized by Agrargeschichte weiter_denken!

Lecture series on agricultural history in Witzenhausen

What perspectives can agricultural history offer for a differentiated understanding of agriculture?
In order to approach this question, we would like to invite historians to Witzenhausen whose work is dedicated to questions of agricultural history.

The dynamics, interactions and effects of environmental-historical and social processes and phenomena in the context of agricultural forms of use and human consumption can often only be analyzed and studied from a historical distance. Keywords here are: Climate change, globalization, colonialism, migration, access to land, land use changes, Nazi agricultural policy and organic farming - to name just a few.

Our initiative would like to encourage the much-cited "holistic thinking" in the context of sustainable concepts of agriculture to be taken further and to include global-historical aspects - and not ignore them.

The aim is the continuation, further development and reorientation of agricultural history teaching and research at Faculty 11, which discusses current scientific discourses and research approaches from a global-historical perspective. To be continued in the winter semester!