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Bio

Sonja Dümpelmann is a historian of landscapes and the built environment. She is professor and chair of Environmental Humanities at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Her research and writing focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century urban environments, especially in Europe and the United States. Of special importance to her work are the relationships between the inside and the outside, i.e. the relationships between architecture and landscape, center and periphery, theory and practice; those in power and those subjected to that power; intent and contingency; and the relationships between social and political processes and landscape transformation.

Dümpelmann is the author of Seeing Trees: A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin (Yale University Press, 2019; 2022 Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award; 2019 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize), Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design (University of Virginia Press, 2014; 2015 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize), and of a book on the Italian landscape architect Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (VDG Weimar, 2004). Her edited volumes include Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise and Health (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2022; 2023 North American Society Sport History Anthologies Book Award), Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age (together with Charles Waldheim; Harvard GSD, 2016), Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture (together with John Beardsley; Routledge, 2015), A Cultural History of Gardens in the Age of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2013), Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century (together with Dorothee Brantz; University of Virginia Press, 2011), and Pückler and America (German Historical Institute Washington DC, 2007). Dümpelmann has guest-edited special journal issues and has published numerous book chapters, and articles in scholarly and professional journals, including Journal of Urban History, Landscape Journal, Landscape Research, Planning Perspectives, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, Stadtbauwelt, Stadt und Grün, Die Gartenkunst, Journal of Landscape Architecture, and Landscript.

She lectures internationally and has held research fellowships at the German Historical Institute, and at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC. She was a 2020–21 fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). Her work has also been supported through grants from the Graham Foundation and the Foundation for Landscape Studies. She was a 2015 August-Wilhelm Scheer Visiting Professor at the Technical University Munich.

Dümpelmann has served as Senior Fellow of Garden and Landscape Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington D.C. (2014-20), and as President of the Landscape History Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (2013-16).

Before joining LMU Munich she was a tenured full professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design where she also served as Acting Department Chair for two semesters. She has also held appointments at Harvard University (Associate Professor 2012-2019), the University of Maryland (Assistant Professor 2007-2012), and Auburn University (Assistant Professor 2005-2007). Dümpelmann holds a doctorate in landscape history from the University of the Arts, Berlin, and a MLA from Leibniz Universität Hannover. She has curated exhibitions on landscape-related topics in Germany and the U.S., and has worked as a landscape designer in Studio Paolo Bürgi, Switzerland.

For a full cv please contact sonja.duempelmann@lmu.de.

Research

Focus Areas

  • Landscape history
  • Environmental history
  • Urban history
  • History of the built environment
  • History of science and technology, especially its intersection with the built environment/landscapes
  • Garden and landscape studies
  • Visual culture studies
  • Plants in history

Current Projects

Selected Publications

Authored Books and Edited Volumes

  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. Knowing Trees: A History of Public Health [working title], under contract with Yale University Press (In Progress).
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. ed. Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise, Sport, and Health. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2022. (2023 North American Society Sport History Anthologies Book Award)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. Seeing Trees: A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019. (2022 Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award; 2019 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize; 2019 Julia Ward Howe Award Finalist)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja and Charles Waldheim, eds. Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2016.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja and John Beardsley, eds. Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. (2015 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja, ed. A Cultural History of Gardens in the Age of Empire. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja and Dorothee Brantz, eds. Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011. (first paperback edition 2019)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-1974). Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Gartenkultur in Italien im 20. Jahrhundert. Weimar: VDG, 2004.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja, Carsten Neumann, and Clemens Alexander Wimmer, eds. Preußisch Grün: Hofgärtner in Brandenburg-Preußen. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2004.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. Karl Foerster: Vom großen Welt- und Gartenspiel, Begleitpublikation zur Ausstellung vom 17.8. bis 22.9.2001 in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin und vom 8.9. bis 7.10.2001 im Ausstellungspavillion auf der Freundschaftsinsel in Potsdam. Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

Guest-Edited Journal Issues

  • Dümpelmann, Sonja and Susan Herrington, guest editors. Special Issue: Time, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 34, no. 1 (2014).
  • Duempelmann, Sonja, ed. Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement 4: Pückler and America. Washington D.C., 2007.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja, guest editor, Die Gartenkunst 18, no. 1 (2006).

Selected Book Chapters and Articles

  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Urbanisierung und die Rückkehr der Bäume.” In Natur und Umwelt: Zu Chancen und Risiken im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. by Birgit Aschmann and Janis Nalbadidacis. Frankfurt and New York: Campus. (in press)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Planting Vigilance: Philadelphia’s Twentieth-Century Window Gardening Campaigns and the Safety of Public Space.” In Constellations of Vigilance Beyond the Human–Animals, Environment, and Technology, ed. by Brendan Röder and Anna Meiser. Berlin: De Gruyter. (in press)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Bauen, Konstruieren.” In Pflanzen: Kulturwissenschaftliches Handbuch, ed. by Isabel Kranz and Joela Jacobs. 207–220. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler Verlag, 2026.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “(Un)Covering the Ground: Urban Ecologies of Soils and Plants.” In Cambridge Urban History of Europe, Volume 3: Modern Europe from c. 1850–2000, ed. by Dorothee Brantz and Gábor Sonkoly. 453–471. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2026.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Planting Inside-Out: Window Gardening and Civil Rights in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Philadelphia,” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 32, no. 1 (2025): 27–60.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Sounding Extreme Environments.” LA+ 22: Environment (2025): 42–51.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Foreword: Tree Time.” In Branching Out: The Public History of Trees, ed. Leah S. Glaser and Philip Levy. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 2025.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “The Politics and Art of Tree Care.” In Climate Bridge: An International Perspective on how to Enact Climate Action at the Government Public Interface, ed. Wolfram Höfer, Arianna Lindberg, Angela Oberg. 214–227. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2025.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Landscape is Gendered!” In Landscape Is …, ed. by Gareth Doherty and Charles Waldheim. 84–113. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2025.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Tree Futures.” In Trees, Time, Architecture: Design in Constant Transformation, ed. by Andjelka Badnjar, Kristina Pujkilović, Ferdinand Ludwig and Andres Lepik. 18–27. Zürich: Park Books, 2025.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Appartenance ethnique et racines rurales de la formation à l’architecture du paysage: Frederick Law Olmsted, un heritage en débat,” (transl. from English by Henri Colomer), Cahiers Paysage no. 45 (2024).
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Spiraling Diversity and Blank Spots in a Nineteenth-Century Utopian Botanic Garden.” LA+ 19: Botanic (2024): 12–21.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Plant(s) Matter: On the Dichotomy and Duplicity of Green Walls and Grass Pavements.” In Bio Matter Technics Synthetics, ed. by Franca Trubiano,Amber Farrow, Maria Jose Fuentes, Susan Kolber, Marta Llor. 86–103. Barcelona: Actar, 2024.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Tree Times: Urban Plants as Time Keepers and Seasonal Indicators.” Journal of Urban History. Special section on seasonality, ed. by Kara Schlichting and Avi Sharma (2024).
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Growing Houses: Fusing Nature and Culture in the Early Twentieth Century,” Roadsides no. 011, https://roadsides.net/duempelmann-010/ special issue: Urban Bio-Infrastructures, ed. by Raúl Acosta and Lukas Ley (2023).
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja, Gioelli, Robert, Pauleit, Stephan, Sinha, Anindya, Wright, Katherine, Zhang, Amy, “Making Urban Environments: Infrastructures of Power, Resistance, and Negotiation,” Global Environment: A Journal of Transdisciplinary History 6, no. 2 (2023): 222-257.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Humboldthain in Berlin: Landscape Design, the Geographical Imagination, and Education in Late Nineteenth-Century Prussia.” In The Landscape as Union between Art and Science, ed. by Alessandra Capuano et al. 202–225. Rome: Quodlibet, 2023.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Pflanzengerechter Städtebau. Schattenbäume, Schmuckbäume, Klimabäume und Zukunftsbäume.” Werk, bauen + wohnen, no. 7 (2022): 28-32.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “‘Let All Be Educated Alike Up to a Certain Point’.“ Places Journal, June 2022. https://placesjournal.org/article/olmsted-booker-t-washington-landscape-architecture-education/ (2023 Bradford William Medal, American Society of Landscape Architects)
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green.” LA+ 15: Green (2022), 36-45.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Walking, Drawing, Designing. Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell’s Drawing Stick and Eighteenth-Century Landscape Gardens,” Ri:vista. Research for Landscape Architecture 20, no. 1 (2022): 100-111.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Plants.” In The Landscape Project, ed. by Richard Weller and Tatum Hands. 52-68. Los Angeles: ORO, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Landscape Gardening, Landscape Architecture, and Outdoor Art: The Beginning of Landscape Architectural Education in the United States 1862-1920.” In Landscape Architecture Education History. Educators–Schools–Methods–Curricula, ed. by Stefanie Hennecke and Diedrich Bruns. 121–134. Abingdon, UK, and New York London: Routledge, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Counting and Caring for Urban Trees: Street Tree Surveys and Citizen Protest in West Berlin.” In Politics of Urban Knowledge: Historical Perspectives on the Shaping and Governing of Cities, ed. by Bert de Munck and Jens Lachmund. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Vorwort: Bau und Baum,” / “Preface: Building and Tree,” in Wachsende Architektur / Growing Architecture, by Ferdinand Ludwig and Daniel Schoenle. 6-9. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Dreaming, Documenting, Disturbing: Independent Environmental Film in 1970s West Berlin.” In The Routledge Companion to Media and the City, ed. by Brendan Kredell, Erica Stein, and Germaine Halegoua. 239-251. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Ludwig Lessers ‘Gärten fürs Volk.’ Die Deutsche Gartenbau-Gesellschaft und der Raum für gesellschaftliche Entwicklung in den 1920er Jahren.” In 200 Jahre Deutsche Gartenbau-Gesellschaft 1822, ed. by Klaus Neumann. 211-223. Stuttgart: Ulmer, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Occupying Public Space, Generating Public Spheres: Street Tree Art and Activism in East and West Berlin.” In The Politics of Street Trees, ed. by Jan Woudstra and Camilla Allen. 291-306. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Introduction: Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise, Sport, and Health.” In Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise, Sport, and Health, ed. by Sonja Dümpelmann. 1–32. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Labyrinth, Hippodrome, Racetrack: Shaping Landscapes and Bodies in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Berlin.” In Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise, Sport, and Health, ed. by Sonja Dümpelmann. 295–338. Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Letting the Dust Settle. The Landscapes of Open Space in the Model Housing Developments QT8, Milan, and Hansaviertel, West-Berlin.” In Landscapes of Housing, ed. by Jeanne Haffner. 168-194. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2022.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Model Trees: Standards, Systems, and Science in the History of Urban Arboriculture.” Nodium: Zeitschrift des Alumni-Clubs Landschaft der Technischen Universität München 13 (2021): 52-61.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Green Is Hope, and Grass the Future.” Places Journal. April 2021. https://placesjournal.org/article/in-berlin-green-is-hope-and-grass-the-future/
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Grünes Gras und frische Luft im Hippodrom. Zur Berliner Spiel- und Sportbewegung im Deutschen Kaiserreich,” Neue Landschaft, no. 3 (2021): 23-30.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “ ‘Landscape Architect better carries the Professional Idea’: On the Politics of Words in the Professionalization of Landscape Architecture in the United States.” In From Garden Art to Landscape Architecture: Traditions, Re-Evaluations, and Future Perspectives,” ed. by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn and Sabine Albersmeier. 55-69. Munich: AVM Edition, 2021.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Urban Trees in Times of Crisis: Palliatives, Mitigators, and Resources.” One Earth 2, May 22, 2020. 402-404. https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(20)30204-9.pdf
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Multitasking Street Trees.” Biophilic Cities Journal 3, no. 2 (2020): 36-39. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bbd32d6e66669016a6af7e2/t/5eff3fd4e7b8e202d6f8a26d/1593786330913/Dumpelmann.pdf
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Trees, Wood, and Paper: Materialities of Urban Arboriculture in Modern Berlin,” Journal of Urban History 46, no. 2 (2020): 310-333.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Straßen-Baum-Geschichten.” In StadtRaumDetail. Die Ausstattung des öffentlichen Raums vom Bordstein zur Straßenlaterne, ed. by Konstanze Sylvia Domhardt, Ruth Hanisch, Paul Kahlfeldt, Rainer Schützeichel, Wolfgang Sonne. 94-107. Berlin: Dom Publishers, 2020.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Seeing, Surveying, and Sorting Urban Trees: The 1970s Street Tree Project in Dresden, GDR.” In The Botanical City, ed. by Matthew Gandy and Sandra Jasper, 91-99. Berlin: Jovis, 2020.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Die Stadt als Wald und der Wald als Stadt.” In Design und Mimesis: Kreative Nachahmungsprozesse zwischen Natur und Kultur, edited by Antonia Ulrich and Friedrich Weltzien. 92-109. Berlin: Reimer, 2019.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Die Kultur der Straßenbäume: Straßenbäume sind in der Geschichte unserer Städte verwurzelt,” ProBaum 3 (2019): 13-19.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Die Wurzeln des Straßenbaums,” Der Tagesspiegel, no. 23813, May 3, 2019.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “A New Paradigm for the Promenade.” In Inspiration High Line, edited by Lehrstuhl für Landschaftsarchitektur und industrielle Landschaft Fakultät für Architektur, Technische Universität München, 22-23. München: Technische Universität München, 2018.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. In “The Timekeepers: In Conversation with Kathryn Gleason, Sonja Dümpelmann, Christophe Girot,” LA+ 8: Time (fall 2018): 108-155.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Inciting the Cold War: Berlin’s Street Trees as Firewood.” Harvard Design Magazine no. 45 (2018): 154-160.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Big Sport for Big Landscape,” Paysage Topscape 31 (2018): 49-54.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Grün im Fluss. Urbane Landschaften in den Werken der Nachkriegszeit von Hammerbacher, Crowe und Parpagliolo.” Topiaria Helvetica (2018): 19-29.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Airport Commons.” In Prati urbani. I prati collettivi nel paesaggio della città/City Meadows. Community Fields in Urban Landscapes, edited by Franco Panzini, 217-233. Treviso: Fondazione Benetton, 2018.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “ ‘Tree Doctor’ vs. ‘Tree Butcher’: Material Practices and Politics of Arboriculture in Chicago.” Landscript 05: Material Culture (Berlin: Jovis, 2017), 90-113.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Bürgerrecht durch Straßenbäume: Das Neighborhood Tree Corps in Brooklyn in den 1970er Jahren.” In Theorien der Aneignung von Urbanen Freiräumen, edited by Thomas Hauck, Stefanie Hennecke, and Stefan Körner, 241-262. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2017.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “The Greater Green: Park System Planning at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century in Chicago, Berlin, and Rome.” In Kult und Krise des Großen Plans im Städtebau, edited by Harald Bodenschatz and Celina Kress, 175-187. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2017.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Holding Fear.” Harvard Design Magazine 42 (2016): 33.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Airport–A Cultural Landscape?” Landscape Architecture China, no. 8 (2016): 69-80.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “The Landscapes of Airport Transfer.” In Thinking the Contemporary Landscape: Concepts and Methods, edited by Christophe Girot and Dora Imhof, 64-84. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2016.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Airport, Landscape, Environment.” In Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age, edited by Sonja Dümpelmann and Charles Waldheim, 97-119. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2016.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Planting Civil Rights: Street Tree Plant-Ins in New York City.” Landscape Architecture Magazine 105, no. 12 (2015): 116-124.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Landscape: A Vignette.” AIJ Journal of Architecture and Building Science 130, no. 1671 (2015): 20-23 (English and Japanese).
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Designing the ‘Shapely City’: Women, Trees, and the City.” Journal of Landscape Architecture, no. 2 (2015): 6-17.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Creating New Landscapes for Old Europe: Herta Hammerbacher, Sylvia Crowe, Maria Teresa Parpagliolo.” In Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture, edited by Sonja Dümpelmann and John Beardsley, 15-37. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja, and John Beardsley. “Introduction: Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture.” In Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture, edited by Sonja Dümpelmann and John Beardsley, 1-14. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “ ‘Per la difesa del giardino’: Gardens, Parks, and Landscapes between Tradition and Modernism in early Twentieth-Century Italy.” In Modernism and Landscape Architecture, 1890-1940, edited by Therese O’Malley and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, 137-168. Washington D.C., New Haven and London: National Gallery of Art and Yale University Press, 2015.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Zwischen Ökologie und Kunst. Der Flughafen als Landschaft.” In Ökologie und die Künste, edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte and Daniela Hahn, 71-92. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2015.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “What’s in a Word: On the Politics of Language in Landscape Architecture.” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 34, no. 3 (2014): 207-225.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “An Introduction to Landscape Design and Economics.” Landscape Research 39, no. 5 (2014): 1-11.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja, and Susan Herrington. “Plotting Time in Landscape Architecture.” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 34, no. 1 (2014), guest edited by Sonja Dümpelmann and Susan Herrington.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “The Art and Science of Invisible Landscapes: Camouflage for War and Peace.” In Ordnance: War + Architecture and Space, edited by Gary Boyd and Denis Linehan, 117-135. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Garden Empires.” Introductory chapter in A Cultural History of Gardens in the Age of Empire, edited by Sonja Dümpelmann, 1-36. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “For ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Zur Parkplanung in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika 1830-1930. Ein kurzer Überblick.” Die Gartenkunst 23, no. 1 (2012). 77-87.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Layered Landscapes: Parks and Gardens in the Metropolis.” In Thick Space: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Metropolitanism, edited by Dorothee Brantz, Sasha Disko, and Georg Wagner-Kyora, 213-235. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2012. Reprint published in Urban Landscape, vol. III: Typology, Space, Representation, edited by Anita Berritzbeitia, 201-219. London, New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Duempelmann, Sonja. “Taking Turns: Landscape and Environmental History at the Crossroads.” Landscape Research 36, no. 6 (2011): 625-640.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja and Dorothee Brantz. “Introduction.” In Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century, edited by Dorothee Brantz and Sonja Dümpelmann, 1-16. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Großstadtgrün–Inszenierungen für Erholung und Event.” StadtBauwelt 101, no. 187 (2010): 52-57.
  • Duempelmann, Sonja. “Between Science and Aesthetics: Aspects of ‘Air-minded’ Landscape Architecture.” Landscape Journal 29, no. 2 (2010): 161-178.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “The Landscape Architect Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard in Britain: her international career 1946-1974.” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 30, no. 1 (2010): 94-113.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Der Blick von oben: versteckte und entdeckte Landschaft zwischen 1920 und 1960.” In Kunst Garten Kultur, edited by Gert Gröning and Stefanie Hennecke, 239-264. Berlin: Dietrich-Reimer-Verlag, 2010.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Die Umnutzung von Flugplätzen: Der Orange County Great Park südöstlich von Los Angeles.” Stadt und Grün 58, no. 10 (2009): 33-40.
  • Duempelmann, Sonja. “Creating Order with Nature: The Emergence of Park System Planning in Twentieth-Century Washington, Chicago, Berlin and Rome.” Planning Perspectives 24, no. 2 (2009): 143-173.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Foreword.” In Paolo Bürgi. Landscape Architect. Discovering the (Swiss) Horizon: Mountain, Lake and Forest, edited by Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto, 6-9. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009.
  • Duempelmann, Sonja, “Introduction,” in Sonja Duempelmann, ed., Pückler and America, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement 4 (2007): 1-9.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “American System and Italian Beauty: Transnationale Aspekte der Parkplanung in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts.” Die Gartenkunst 18, no. 1 (2006): 119-142.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “ ‘La battaglia del fiore’. Gardens, Parks and the City in Fascist Italy.” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 25, no. 1 (2005): 40-70.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-1974). Pioniera di una nuova cultura del giardino in Italia.” In Donne di fiori: Paesaggi al femminile, edited by Marta Isnenghi, Flaminia Palminteri, and Ines Romitti, 18-21. Milan: Mondadori Electa S.p.a., 2005.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “ ‘The garden is a national amenity.’ Zur Gartenkultur unter faschistischer Herrschaft in Italien.” In Gegen den Strom. Gert Gröning zum 60. Geburtstag, Beiträge zur räumlichen Planung. Schriftenreihe des Fachbereichs Landschaftsarchitektur und Umweltentwicklung der Universität Hannover. Band 76. Hannover, 2004. 93-110.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-1974). Zum Einfluß gartenkultureller Entwicklungen in Italien, England und Deutschland auf ihre frühen Arbeiten.” Die Gartenkunst 15, no. 1 (2003): 141-157.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-74): Her Development as a Landscape Architect between Tradition and Modernism.” Garden History 30, no. 1 (2002): 49-73.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Suchet und ihr werdet noch anderes finden. Die Forschung entdeckt Neues im Leben des Gärtners und Schriftstellers Karl Foerster.” Der Tagesspiegel, August 16, 2001. 24; also printed in Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, August 16, 2001, 23.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Zur Gartenkultur in Italien um 1930. Die Verbreitung ausländischer Gartenarchitektur durch den italienischen Architekten und Stadtplaner Luigi Piccinato (1899-1983).” Stadt und Grün 50, no. 1 (2001): 40-47.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Über den Gärtner und Schriftsteller Karl Foerster. ‘Suchet und ihr werdet noch ganz etwas anderes finden’.” Stadt und Grün 50, no. 11 (2001): 786-788.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “The Giardini Margherita in Bologna – an example of North Italian Urban Parks in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.” Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 20, no. 1 (2000): 69-83.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Zur Gartenkultur in Italien um 1930. Entwürfe ausländischer Gartenarchitekten als Ausgangspunkt für die Suche nach dem ‘giardino moderno’.” Stadt und Grün 49, no. 6 (2000): 404–410.
  • Dümpelmann, Sonja. “Der Parco del Valentino in Turin. Beispiel einer italienischen Stadtparkanlage aus der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts.” Die Gartenkunst 11, no. 1 (1999): 81-94.

Teaching

Recent Courses

  • Plant(s) Matter
  • Collecting, Classifying, Conserving, Curating
  • Urban Landscapes and Environments: Histories, Theories, and Futures
  • Exploring the Built Environment
  • The Anthropocene: Elements and Ideas, Histories and Concepts
  • Streets: Social, Cultural, and Environmental Histories of Urban Life
  • Material Matters – Degrowth, Sufficiency, and Sustainability in Urban Environments
  • Current Perspectives on Environment and Society: Thinking, Envisioning, and Building Futures

Academic Staff

Prof. Dr. Uwe Lübken

Dozent und Koordinator des M.A. Environment and Society Programms

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Dr. Spencer Adams

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

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Dr. Pooja Nayak

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

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Student Assistants

Jonas Danen, MA

Doktorand

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Fabian Schunder

studentische Hilfskraft

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Events at the Chair of Environmental Humanities

Event History at the Chair of Environmental Humanities

2026

  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Gregg Mitman: "Thinking Like a Mountain," 05/02/2026
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Juliane Prade-Weiss: "Extractivism, War, and at History of Mass Violence: Lebedev's Donbas Anthropocene," 29/01/2026
  • On Environment with Nayanika Mathur: "Beastly Tales from the Himalaya: An Anthropology for the Anthropocene," 28/01/2026
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Kärin Nickelsen: "To Live Among the Stars: Artificial Environments in the Early Space Age," 22/01/2026
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Karen Pittel: "Water in a Heated World," 15/01/2026
  • On Environment with Finola O'Kane: "Plantation Islands: The First Blueprints for Colonialism?," 14/01/2026
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Stephan Pauleit: "Transforming Urban Landscapes: Why Green Cities Are the Future," 08/01/2026

2025

  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Eveline Dürr: "Ecotourism and Indigeneity in Latin America: Anthropological Perspectives," 18/12/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Jochem Wolf: "'Patient Biodiversity': An Evolutionary Perspective on the Emergence and Loss of Biodiversity," 11/12/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Markus Vogt: "Hope Beyond Optimism: Christian Imagining of the Future in the Time of Ecological Crises," 04/12/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Sabina Leonelli: "Towards and Environmental Intelligence," 27/11/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Jörg Niewöhner: "Rebuilding the Material World? The Impossible Imaginings of Green Chemistry," 20/11/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Udo Weilacher: "The Unfinished and the Open in Contemporary Landscape Architecture," 13/11/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Ruth Gamble: "Scaling the Great Gorge: How Territorialization, Extraction, and Climate Change are Moving Life in the Far Eastern Himalaya," 06/11/2025
  • On Environment with Matthew Gandy: "Attentive Observation: Walking, Listening, and Staying Put," 05/11/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Anne Rademacher: "On the Moral Ecology of Disappearing Coastlines," 30/10/2025
  • “Thinking, Imagining, Building Future Environments” with Sonja Dümpelmann: "Seeing Trees and the Forest," 23/10/2025
  • "The Climate of Infrastructure: Desiccation and Dispossession of Littoral Worlds": A Public Lecture by Nikhil Anand, 06/05/2025
  • On Environment with Joshua Shannon: "How and Why to Look at Art in the Time of Climate Change," 29/01/2025

2024

  • On Environment with Anne Rademacher: "Recomposing Urban Life in an Age of Extinction," 11/12/2024
  • On Environment with Karen M'Closkey: "Mediating Landscapes," 13/11/2024
  • On Environment with Etienne Benson: "Dust Bowl Liberalism's 'Swing to the Quantitative' in the Earth Sciences, 1933-63," 30/10/2024

Current News

  • 28.05.2026 Lecture

    Sonja Dümpelmann, “Von Schafen, Gras und Flugzeugen. Heimatliche Moderne und Biotechnik in Johannisthal und Tempelhof.”

  • 18.05.2026 Lecture

    Sonja Dümpelmann, “Sounding Extreme Environments: Plants, Acoustics, and Urban Space,” LUS Doctoral Crits, Institute for Landscape and Urban Studies, ETH Zurich.

  • 22.04.2026 Keynote Lecture

    Sonja Dümpelmann, “Greening Public Space: Collaboration, Cooperation, and Coproduction,” University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen

  • 26.02.2026 Lecture

    Sonja Dümpelmann, “Plant(s) Matter,” University of Hongkong, Hongkong.

News Archive

2025

  • 03/12/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Wald–Stadt–Wald.” Biberacher Architekturgespräche: “Garten,” Biberach University of Applied Sciences, Biberach.
  • 30/11/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “die grüne stadt von morgen: ‘großstädtisches nutzgrün’ und ‘arkadien.’ die gärten von morgen – erinnern, pflegen, weiterdenken, organized by interbau e.V. – Hansaviertel neu denken, Hansabibliotek Berlin.
  • 06/09/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Keynote Lecture, “Seeing Trees,” summer school “Trees, Time Architecture,” organized by Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Ludwig and Kristina Pujkilovic , Technical University Munich.
  • 14-19/07/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture and Seminar, summer school “Ecology, Capitalism, Democracy,” organized by Center for Transcultural Studies (CTS), Central EuropeanUniversity (CEU), and Center for Global Culture and Communication (CGCC) of Northwestern University. CEU Budapest campus.
  • 07/07/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Sounding Extreme Environments: Plants, Acoustics, and Urban Space,” Montagskolloquium Deutsches Museum, Deutsches Museum, Munich.
  • 18/06/25: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "The ice sheet's non-charismatic other: theorizing a metaphorics of frozen earth in Antarctica," Back to Frozen Earth: Permafrost in Social Theory and Beyond, Sciences Po, Paris.
  • 16/06/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Panel Discussion, Die ästhetische Gestaltung der Energiewende, Bayerische Architektenkammer, moderated by Sören Schöbel-Rutschmann, Haus der Architektur Munich.
  • 03/06/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Baumzeit. Geschichte und Zukunft pflanzenfreundlicher Städte.” Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Technische Universität München, Munich.
  • 16/05/25: Pooja Nayak, Workshop Presentation, "Unmaking Iron Ore: Emotions and Infrastructures of Mining Closure in India." Infrastructural Memory: Cultures of Ecology and Collapse, global dis:connect, LMU-Munich.
  • 15/05/25: Spencer Adams, Workshop Presentation, "Continuity and Transience: on the Antarctic Infrastructures of Global Climate Science," Infrastructural Memory: Cultures of Ecology and Collapse, global dis:connect, LMU-Munich.
  • 24/04/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Web Article, “The hidden history of Philadelphia’s window-box gardens and their role in urban reform,” The Conversation.
  • 13/03/25: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "The Fringes of Imperial Infrastructure: On the History of Space Weather," Panel: Diffracting Colonial Legacies, STS-Hub Diffracting the Critical, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin.
  • 11/03/25: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Trees!” Trees, Time Architecture! Lectures and panel discussion on occasion of the homonymous exhibition curated by Ferdinand Ludwig and Kristina Pujkilović in collaboration with Andjelka Badnar Gojnić and coordinated by Andres Lepik, Oskar von Miller Forum, Munich.
  • 10/03/25: Sonja Dümpelmann featured in “Jury Q&A” together with Julia Czerniak, Catherine Mosbach, Signe Nielsen, and Marcel Wilson, interviewed by Karen M’Closkey, LA+ 20: Exotique (Spring 2025).

2024

  • 20/12/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Radio Interview, BBC Radio 4, Rare Earth: Christmas Trees, in conversation with Helen Czerski and Tom Heap, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0026226.
  • 29/11/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Gendered Landscapes: A History,” WoWA Women Writing Architecture 1700-1900, workshop and colloquium, ETH Zürich.
  • 07/11/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Keynote, “Inszenierte und performative Landschaft,” Staging Nature: Berührungspunkte von Natur und Bühnenwerken, workshop, LMU München.
  • 01/11/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Panelist, Daylight: The Unknown Priority in Urban Planning, Berlin Science Week, CAMPUS | Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Invalidenstr. 43, 10115 Berlin.
  • 31/10/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Book Review of Paul Warde, Libby Robin and Sverker Sörlin's The Environment: A History of the Idea, in The British Journal for the History of Science.
  • 24/10/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Planting Vigiliance: Philadelphia’s Twentieth-Century Window-Gardening Campaigns and the Safety of Public Space,” CRC Annual Conference: Constellations of Vigilance, Munich.
  • 10/10/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Seeing Trees & The Forest,” LMU Munich Climate School, Munich.
  • 27/09/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Panel Presentation, “Imagining and Shaping the Household of Nature,” Landscape Futures: Centennial of the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
  • 24/09/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Spiraling Diversity and Blank Spots in a Nineteenth-Century Botanic Garden,” University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen.
  • 13/09/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Plants: On Poetry, Power, and Perseverance,” PhytoPoetik, Muffatwerk, Munich.
  • 08/08/24: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "Speculative Storytelling from Antarctic Inhabitance: A Brief History," Panel: Speculative Stories, ANEST Storytelling for Environmental Futures Conference, University of Stavanger.
  • 01/08/24: Spencer Adams, Book Review of The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions, edited by Adrian Howkins and Peder Roberts, in H-Environment.
  • 18/07/24: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "Women’s Work, Automation, and the Labor geographies of Ozone Data Collection," Panel: Planetary Data Infrastructures, 4S/EASST 2024, Amsterdam.
  • 25/06/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Knowing Trees: Co-producing Epistemologies of the Environment,” Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
  • 20/06/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Letting the Dust Settle: Postwar Housing Landscapes in East and West Germany,” Exchanges in European Landscape Design, 1945–1975, Institut Européen des Jardins et Paysages, Brussels.
  • 10/06/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Sylvan Cities: The Urban Life of Trees,” Technical University Munich, Vorhoelzer Forum.
  • 06/06/24: Pooja Nayak, Lecture, “Avoiding Wastage: Engineers and the Moral Economy of Iron-Ore Extraction in South India," Lunchtime Colloquium, Rachel Carson Center, LMU-Munich.
  • 23/05/24: Spencer Adams, Lecture, "A Workplace History of the Antarctic," Lunchtime Colloquium, Rachel Carson Center, LMU-Munich.
  • 26/04/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Panelist, Architecture and …, ETH Zurich.
  • 10/04/24: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "The Literary Cultures of British Antarctic Science," Panel: Anthropologies and Ethnographies: Cultures of Literature and Science, International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science, University of Birmingham, UK.
  • 21/03/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Journal Article, “Spiraling Diversity and Blank Spots in a Nineteenth-Century Botanic Utopia,” LA+ 19: Botanic (Spring 2024).
  • 20/03/24: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "Competing Logics of Leakage and Insulation at a Novel Antarctic Research Station," Panel: In the Laboratory, Leakage: Inaugural Conference of sts-ing, TU Dresden
  • 01/03/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “NaturKultur: Leitmotive in der Umweltgestaltung des Anthropozäns,” Ethik und Ästhetik im Anthropozän, Universität Augsburg.
  • 16/02/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “From Breathing Space to Palliative: Urban Forests and Public Health in the Plantationocene,” Forests Futures, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
  • 01/02/24: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Occupying Public Space, Generating Public Spheres: Street Tree Art and Activism in East and West Berlin,” Europaeum winter school 2024: Survivance and Survival: Theory and Method, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.

2023

  • 23/12/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Colloquium Presentation, “Streets of Philadelphia: Window Gardening and Civil Rights in the Twentieth Century,” The Green Hour, Universität Augsburg.
  • 14/12/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Forest Urbanism: A History in Five Places,” Forest Urbanism, Landscape-based Urbanism, & Ecological Urbanism, TU Delft, The Netherlands.
  • 19/11/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Short Lecture, “‘Save a Tree, Save a Neighborhood!’: Trees for Beauty, Shade, and Empowerment in 1960s NYC,” La Beauté Essentielle des Allées d’Arbres, Carcassonne, France.
  • 14/11/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Roundtable Contribution, FocusLMU: Ringvorlesung LMU München.
  • 11/11/23: Spencer Adams, Conference Presentation, "Whither the Working Scientist?: Technical Composition and Epistemological Contingency in the Natural Sciences," Panel: Knowledge-Making in Motion, 4s 2023, Honolulu.
  • 09/11/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Keynote Lecture, “Der Geist der Umwelt. Umweltgeisteswissenschaften und die Geschichte der Landschaft,” FSP-Tage, University of Innsbruck, Austria.
  • 02/11/23: Spencer Adams, Book Review of Clean Air and Good Jobs: U.S. Labor and the Struggle for Climate Justice, written by Vachon, Todd E. in Journal of Labor and Society 27, is. 1 (Mar 24).
  • 28/09/23: Spencer Adams, Symposium Presentation, "Reading the ‘Yugoslav Model’ at the Heart of Callenbach’s Ecotopia," Coding Utopia, ICI Berlin.
  • 19/09/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Planting Inside-Out: Window Gardening and Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia,” Dipartimento di Architettura e Design, Politecnico di Torino.
  • 01/09:23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Conference Lecture, “Tree Time: Urban Trees as Timekeepers and Seasonal Indicators,“ Annual International Conference, Royal Geographical Society.
  • 10/07/23: Sonja Dümpelmann, Lecture, “Urbanisierung und die Rückkehr der Bäume,” Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

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