Geographien Geographischer Gesellschaften, 1821-1914 & Anschlüsse. Zwischen statischen Räumen und fließenden Netzen

Biographical Notes

Prof. Dr. Ute Wardenga (SFB 1199 & Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig University, Germany)
Ute Wardenga is an honorary professor of global studies at Leipzig University (Germany) and serves on the executive boards of the Centre for Area Studies and the Graduate School Global and Area Studies. Since 2012, she has been the deputy director of the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig where she coordinates the research group “History and Geography”. Ute Wardenga’s current research interests focus on geography as a space-related practice in the process of globalization and in this regard leads the SFB project C1, which compares international histories of geographical societies since the early 19th century. Most recently, she has co-directed the research project entitled “Digital Atlas of Geopolitical Imaginaries of Eastern Central Europe”, which explored the impact of cartographic and mass media representations of space in Eastern Central Europe since 1989.

Dr. Ninja Steinbach-Hüther (SFB 1199 & Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig University, Germany)
Ninja Steinbach-Hüther studied French culture studies and intercultural communication, transcultural anglophone studies and German as a foreign language at the University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken, as well as European studies during a semester abroad at Cardiff University, Wales. For several years, she has worked as a research assistant and, most recently, as the project coordinator of a German-Greek bilateral research project at the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University. The position that she is currently holding within the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199 is within the project C1 “Geographical Societies 1821–1914 in International Comparison” at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography. Her academic interests include the circulation of knowledge in a globalizing world, cultural transfers, and the configuration of new spatial formats and actors within these processes.

Maximilian Georg (SFB 1199 & Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig University, Germany)
From 2008 to 2011, Maximilian Georg studied social sciences with a focus on history at the universities of Luxembourg and Clermont-Ferrand II (France). He received a bachelor of arts from the University of Luxembourg for a study on the ancient history of the Church. From 2011 to 2013, he studied global studies with a focus on global history at the universities of Vienna (Austria), Santa Barbara (USA), and Leipzig (Germany). He received a master of arts from Leipzig U for a study on the history of archaeology in Egypt in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since 2013, he is a member of the Graduate School Global and Area Studies at Leipzig U and prepares a PhD dissertation on the history of native workforces in German archaeological excavations in Egypt, 1899–1914. Also since 2013, he is a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL) in Leipzig in the research group “History of Geography”.

Stephan Pietsch (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig, Germany)
Stephan Pietsch joined the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in 2014 after earning his MA in human geography from the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany). His research interests include geographical imaginations, geographies of films and video games, political geography, and the history of geography and cartography. He is currently a part of the SFB project C5 “Maps of Globalization: The Production and Visualization of Spatial Knowledge” exploring the productions and reproductions of perceptions and knowledge of globalization through (carto)graphical visualization from the 1860s until today.

Dirk Hänsgen (SFB 1199 & Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig University, Germany)
After studying geography and political science, in 1991 Dirk Hänsgen received a Magister Artium for a work on Anglo-American geopolitical concepts in the 20th century. From 1992 to 1997, he was an assistant at the chair of geography and its didactics at the University of Trier and also worked temporarily at the Documentation Centre for German Regional Studies at the same university. From 1998 to 1999, he worked in the map department of the Berlin State Library. Since 2000, he is at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig. First, he was a member of the editorial staff of the Nationalatlas Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Since 2011, he works in the research group “History of Geography” in various projects on map history, critical map and mapping analysis, as well as geopolitical imaginations and imaginaries.

Prof. Dr. Dirk van Laak (Department of History, Leipzig University, Germany)
Dirk van Laak is professor at Leipzig University for German and European history in the 19th and 20th century. His research further focuses on colonialism and imperialism, history of technique, planning, and infrastructure, human and intellectual history, and the history of historical thinking and history writing. Before joining the University of Leipzig he held academic positions at the universities in Gießen, Freiburg, Tübingen, Jena, and Chicago.