Climate and Environmental History Seminar: Djoeke van Netten, University of Amsterdam

Seminar

Date: Wednesday 26 February 2025

Time: 15.00 – 17.00

Location: Department of History, room D837 and on Zoom.

Meeting Great White Bears. How to Understand Polar Bears from Western Europe, 1590s–1630s. Djoeke van Netten (University of Amsterdam) presents at the seminar.

Detail from "Pascaarte van de zeecusten van Europa" (Amsterdam ca. 1621), Willem Blaeu (1571–1638). Wikimedia Commons/Public domain.

In 1596–1597, seventeen Dutchmen spent a long cold dark winter on the northeast of Novaya Zemlya. The polar bears they met, have always been depicted as terrible, ferocious, aggressive wild beasts, and as part of the unchanging white hostile Arctic environment.

A new reading is proposed of their travel account (and of several other early modern adventures in the Far North), focusing on the dynamic encounters between humans and other animals. This, consequently, allows us to address larger questions, on animal agency, animal culture, and the role of climate change.

Djoeke van Netten is Associate Professor Early Modern History at the University of Amsterdam. Her research is at the crossroads of the history of knowledge, maritime history and the history of books and maps.

Convenors: Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist (Stockholm University), Charlotta Forss (Södertörn University), and Martin Skoglund (Stockholm University).

Link for participation via Zoom

For more information about the seminar, e-mail fredrik.c.l@historia.su.se

Theme

History, Archeology and Cultural Heritage

Research subject

Environmental and Climate History

Last updated: February 10, 2025

Source: Department of History

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