Dr. A. Weber (andreas)

Biography

Andreas Weber is a historian with a special interest in the historical relationship between science, materials and governance approached from a global perspective. Andreas is currently researcher in the DH project Making Sense of Illustrated Handwritten Archives (2016-2019) which aims to develop an advanced and user-friendly online service to search digitized illustrated handwritten collections. Core use case of the project is the archive of the Committee for Natural History of the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850). It is one of the top-collections of Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. From 1820 to 1850, the Committee for Natural History charted the natural and economic state of the Dutch East Indies and returned a wealth of handwritten scientific data, illustrations, and specimens which are now stored in archives in the Netherlands and Indonesia. The project is financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and BRILL in Leiden. It also involves natural history experts form Naturalis BC and computer scientists from Leiden (LIACS) and Groningen (ALICE). In the past, Andreas has undertaken various efforts to disclose this archive for historians, biodiversity researchers and a broader public. Moreover, he is finishing a monograph with the working title Materials at work: Governing nature and society in the early nineteenth century Dutch Empire. The book will consist of four material biographies which shed fresh light on the co-productive relationship between chemistry, governance, and empire through the lens of everyday materials. In the context of this project, Andreas also co-curated a public exhibition on the history of recycling at the Dutch National Museum for the History of Science and Medicine, Museum Boerhaave, in Leiden. Andreas studied History, German language and literature at the Universities Leiden (MA History, 2005, cum laude) and Bamberg (1. Staatsexamen, 2006). As PhD student at Leiden University (2007-2012), Andreas focused on the intertwined histories of natural history, chemistry, and government reform in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Netherlands and its overseas territories in the Indonesian Archipelago. Key figure of his dissertation was the German chemist-administrator Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773-1854). Andreas has developed and taught courses on Dutch (colonial) history, history of science in colonial and global context and the long term development of science and technology at the Universities of Enschede and Leiden. Moreover, he has (co-)supervised MA and BA theses on a broad range of topics. From September 2010 to January 2011, he has worked as temporary coordinator of the Leiden ENCOMPASS program, a training program for students from all over Asia.

Research Interest

historical relationship between science, materials and governance approached from a global perspective