2025 Events

Critical Zones Africa: Towards an African Science and Politics of Habitability

Guest Lecture

Date: Nov 21, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Lesley Green (Environmental Humanities South, University of Cape Town, South Africa)
Location: MPI GEA and Zoom
Host: Department Structural Changes of the Technosphere
Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures
Contact: rossee@gea.mpg.de

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Graphic announcing Palaeosystems in Focus Seminar by Lucy van Dorp on 18 Nov 2025 at 2pm CET

Uncovering the Drivers of Pathogen Evolution from Ancient DNA to Modern Disease

Date: Nov 18, 2025
Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Lucy van Dorp
University College London, Genetics Institute
Location: Zoom
Host: Human Palaeosystems Research Group
Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures
Contact: kutowsky@gea.mpg.de

Linking ancient DNA with modern genomic data provides a powerful framework for examining the evolution of pathogens and their hosts over centuries. Applied to microorganisms, ancient DNA approaches can recover lineages absent from contemporary sampling, expanding our view of past diversity. Temporal calibration points refine estimates of lineage ages and mutation rates, and increasingly enable the reconstruction of gene gain and loss chronologies. In this talk, I will discuss how time‐resolved approaches applied to pathogens can illuminate the processes that have shaped their diversity and adaptation, offering deeper insight into the forces influencing major disease challenges from the past to the present. [more]

Mining Conversations. The Futurepasts of ... Iron

Date: Nov 17, 2025
Time: 08:00 PM - 09:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Shanai Matteson, arts and culture collective Talon Mine Tours and Wildflower Group media collective/ Júlia Medeiros, MPI GEA/ Karin Reisinger, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Location: online
Host: Max-Planck-Institut für Geoanthropologie und Anthropocene Commons
Contact: rossee@gea.mpg.de

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Water Management in Decision Theater - Learning from Others

Date: Nov 8, 2025
Time: 10:00 AM - 11:55 AM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Various
Location: Cafe Moskau Karl-Marx-Allee 34, Mitte, 10178 Berlin, Deutschland
Host: Falling Walls Foundation/ organised by Department Structural Changes of the Technosphere MPI-GEA
Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures
Contact: schwab@gea.mpg.de

This presentation explores three global Decision Theater cases: Arizona's water scarcity, Israel's tech-driven solutions, and China's Yellow River management. It highlights how these diverse approaches offer valuable insights for German water policy. Through comparative analysis, we examine transferable strategies and innovations, emphasising the importance of learning from others to shape adaptive, sustainable water management practices. [more]

Multiple monitors show images in a dark room. Text reads: Decision Theater Ideathon - Apply by 4 October 2025

Decision Theater^TM Ideathon

Berlin Science Week

Start: Nov 6, 2025 09:00 AM (Local Time Germany)
End: Nov 7, 2025 02:00 PM
Location: Säälchen, Holzmarktstraße 25, 10243 Berlin
Host: Jürgen Renn
Contact: rennoffice@gea.mpg.de

Arizona State University and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology invite you to an immersive ideathon on 6–7 November in Berlin. Fifty professionals from politics, urban development, AI, art, culture, and creative tech will collaborate in interdisciplinary teams to explore new applications for the Decision Theater™ decision-making tool. [more]

WE-Heraeus Symposium: Revisiting the History of Quantum Physics

Start: Nov 5, 2025 10:00 AM (Local Time Germany)
End: Nov 7, 2025 01:00 PM
Speaker: Various
Location: WissenschaftsForum Berlin
Host: MPI GEA, Wilhelm und Else Heraeus-Stiftung
Contact: rennoffice@gea.mpg.de

On the occasion of the centenary of quantum theory, this international workshop brings together world-leading experts to synthesize recent scholarship on the history of quantum physics. The workshop explores key themes including the genesis of quantum mechanics, its social, cultural, and institutional contexts, interpretation debates, the role of women in the field, and the postwar expansion of quantum theory into areas like quantum field theory, condensed matter physics, and quantum information. The event offers an opportunity to reassess the past century and shape a future research agenda for the history of quantum physics. [more]

CONNECTING URBANISM ACROSS TIME AND SPACE

Start: Oct 27, 2025 09:00 AM (Local Time Germany)
End: Oct 29, 2025 08:00 PM
Speaker: Various
Location: Normannenhaus Jena, Forstweg 12, 07745 Jena
Host: Department Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanization
Contact: carleton@gea.mpg.de

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Weimarer Kontroversen in Berlin | Sag, wie hast du´s mit dem Weltuntergang?

Date: Oct 22, 2025
Time: 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Eva Geulen und Jürgen Renn im Gespräch mit Helmut Heit
Location: Gemäldegalerie, Matthäikirchplatz, 10785 Berlin
Room: Cafébereich
Host: Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures

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Cutting Edge: Quantifying Complexity in Stone Tools

Date: Oct 21, 2025
Speaker: Charles Perreault (Keynote)
School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University
Location: Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and Zoom
Host: Human Palaeosystems Research Group
Contact: cuttingedge@gea.mpg.de

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Perspectives on the Regimes of Extraction and the Green Energy Transition

Date: Oct 20, 2025
Time: 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Samuel Akande, Department of Geology and Mineral Sciences, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria
Location: Hybrid Format - Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Mezzanine and Zoom
Room: Mezzanine and Zoom
Host: Department Structural Changes of the Technosphere
Contact: kaye@gea.mpg.de

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The evolution of human niche size in East Asia across the Pleistocene

Date: Oct 15, 2025
Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Miikka Tallavaara
Assistant Professor, University of Helsinki
Location: Zoom
Host: Human Palaeosystems Research Group
Contact: kutowsky@gea.mpg.de

Humans can thrive in nearly all terrestrial environments, exhibiting exceptional ecological flexibility among primates. However, it remains unclear how and when this flexibility first emerged in the human lineage. In this talk, I present a study addressing this question in the East Asian context. [more]

Forget-me-not: Japanese historical linguistics in memory of Prof. Dr. Elisabeth De Boer

Start: Oct 8, 2025 09:00 AM (Local Time Germany)
End: Oct 9, 2025 04:00 PM
Speaker: Various
Location: Hybrid Format - Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, V.14 + Online
Room: Villa V14 and Zoom
Host: Language and the Anthropocene Research Group - Martine Robbeets
Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures
Contact: robbeets@gea.mpg.de

On 22th August 2023, our dear colleague Elisabeth de Boer sadly died at the age of 57, cutting short a promising career in Japanese Historical Linguistics. Elisabeth was a respected teacher of Japanese and linguistics at the Universities of Leiden and Bochum. Her researched challenged several so-called teisetsu or ‘accepted opinions’ encountered in the field. Among others, Elisabeth showed that Japanese is better described as a restricted tone language than as a pitch-accent language; that Kyōto-type dialects have been less conservative than dialects to their east and west and that the commonly accepted binary tree structure of Japonic is in need of revision. Moreover, Elisabeth did not shy away from interdisciplinary approaches, integrating linguistic evidence with archaeological and genetic findings to illuminate ancient population movements across the Japanese Islands. [more]

Mining Conversations. The Futurepasts of ... Shale Oil and Gas

Date: Sep 22, 2025
Time: 08:00 PM - 09:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Benjamin Steininger, MPI-GEA/ Silas Grant, University of New Mexico/ Monika Halkort, School for Transformation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna/ J. T. Jack, University of Groningen
Location: online
Host: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and Anthropocene Commons
Contact: rossee@gea.mpg.de

[more]

The Ecology-Language Relationship Through Time in Microcosms of the World’s Ecologies: the Andes and the Altai-Amur-Japan

Start: Sep 16, 2025 05:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
End: Sep 18, 2025 08:00 PM
Speaker: Various
Location: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Host: Martine Robbeets, Paul Heggarty and Rebecca Sequeira
Contact: sequeira@gea.mpg.de

[more]

MINT-FESTIVAL JENA 2025

Start: Sep 16, 2025
End: Sep 18, 2025
Speaker: Various
Location: Campus Ernst-Abbe-Platz der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Host: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität
Contact: mint@uni-jena.de

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Deep-time, large-scale perspectives on biodiversity and ecosystems - implications for biosphere stewardship in the Anthropocene

Human Palaeosystems in Focus

Date: Aug 27, 2025
Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Jens-Christian Svenning
Department of Biology at Aarhus University, Denmark; Director of DNRF Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere
Location: Zoom
Host: Human Palaeosystems Research Group
Contact: kutowsky@gea.mpg.de

[more]

Mining Conversations. The Futurepasts of ... Petroleum

Date: Jul 29, 2025
Time: 08:00 PM - 09:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Nellys Koyoo, Kenyatta University/ Ana Luiza Nicolae, Harvard University - Department History of Science/ Monique Verdin, Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative, The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange
Location: online
Host: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and Anthropocene Commons
Contact: rossee@gea.mpg.de

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Mining Conversations. The Futurepasts of ... Lithium

Date: Jun 26, 2025
Time: 08:00 PM - 09:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Karolína Žižková, Czech Academy of Sciences & Masaryk University/ Verónica Zuccarelli Freire, Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow, MPI GEA/ Kassandra Lisenbee, Earthworks/ Berenika Boberska, Feral Office, Los Angeles
Location: online
Host: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and Anthropocene Commons
Contact: rossee@gea.mpg.de

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Workshop: Human-Environment Interactions in Eurasian Uplands

Start: Jun 18, 2025 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
End: Jun 20, 2025 02:00 PM
Location: Hybrid Event hosted at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Host: Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution Independent Research Group, FEDD: Fruits of Eurasia Research Group
Contact: filipovic@gea.mpg.de

[more]

Geoanthropologie: Kann sich die Wissenschaft auf die Herausforderungen des Anthropozäns einstellen?

Ringvorlesung Nachhaltigkeit: Ringvorlesung Nachhaltigkeit - Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn

Date: Jun 12, 2025
Time: 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn
Location: Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8, Jena
Host: FSU Jena
Topic: Discussion and debate formats, lectures

The lecture discusses the Anthropocene as a new geological era in which humans have become the decisive influencing factor for the Earth system. In response to this fundamental transformation, geoanthropology is presented as a transdisciplinary research approach that examines the interactions between global society and the Earth system. Using the example of the energy transition, the lecture highlights the discrepancy between scientific knowledge and social action and argues for a systemic understanding of complex transformation processes. The central thesis is that the challenges of the Anthropocene can only be overcome through integrative approaches that take into account the co-evolution of technosphere and planetary processes. [more]