Heike Weber

Base

Name

Heike Weber
Academic title(s)

Prof. Dr.
Institute

KIT, Institute of History
Address

Douglasstraße 24
Zip code

76133
Country

Germany
Short biography

Heike Weber is Professor for Technology Culture Studies (Technikkulturwissenschaft) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany). Her main research lies at the intersection of consumption history, environmental history and history of technology. She has worked on 20th century everyday technologies (e.g. household appliances, media technologies, mobile electronic devices). More recently, she moved on along the so called ‚lifecycle’ concept and and wrote on the history of waste, recycling and repair. By applying the term of ‘unmaking’, she wants to push our perspectives beyond the traditional focus on production and consumption towards the question of how people, industry, and society define, treat and dispose of old and used stuff.
From 2014 to 2017, Heike Weber was Professor of History of Technology and Environmental History at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal. Beforehand, she held positions at several Technical Universities and was guest researcher at the Smithsonian (Washington DC) and the EHESS (Paris).
Recent publications

20th century Wastescapes: Cities, Consumers, and their dumping grounds. In: Tim Soens, Bert De Munck, Michael Toyka-Seid, Dieter Schott (ed.): Urbanizing Nature. The transformation of city-nature relationships 1500-2000 (2018).

Krebs, Stefan; Schabacher, Gabriele und Heike Weber (ed.): Kulturen des Reparierens. Dinge – Wissen – Praktiken. Bielefeld 2018.

Made to Break? – Lebensdauer, Reparierbarkeit und Obsoleszenz in der Geschichte des Massenkonsums von Technik. In: Krebs, Stefan; Schabacher, Gabriele und Heike Weber (ed.): Kulturen des Reparierens. Dinge – Wissen – Praktiken. Bielefeld 2018

(guest-ed.): „Entschaffen“: Reste und das Ausrangieren, Zerlegen und Beseitigen des Gemachten. Technikgeschichte 81 (1), 2014 (special issue)

Zur Materialität von Müll: Abfall aus stoffgeschichtlicher Perspektive. In: Blätter für Technikgeschichte 2015 (77), S. 75-100.

Von wild zu geordnet? Konzeptionen, Wissensbestände und Techniken des Deponierens im 20. Jahrhundert. In: Technikgeschichte 81 (2), 2014, S. 119-146.

„Entschaffen“: Reste und das Ausrangieren, Zerlegen und Beseitigen des Gemachten. (Einleitung). In: Technikgeschichte 81 (1), 2014, S. 1-32.

with Ruth Oldenziel (ed.): Recycling and Re-use in the Twentieth Century. Special Issue, Contemporary European History 22 (3), 2013.
Role in Tensions of Europe

Participant
Research interests

Mobilty, Energy, Waste and Reuse, Environment