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Antoine Acker will be in residence at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich from September 2020 to March 2021 and a Fellow at the Munich Centre for Global History from April to July 2021.
- AnthropoSouth: Latin American Oil Revolutions in the Development Century (SNF-Eccellenza)
- Between Techno-Politics and Eco-Mythology: Petroleum and the Making of Modern Brazil (Book project)
- History and the Politics of the Anthropocene
- Teaching and collaborative project with Shanghai University: Global History of Climate Change from Theory to Practice
June 2019 Fellow of the Center for the History of Global Development, Shanghai University
2016-2017 Marie Sklodowska Curie COFUND fellow, environmental humanities, University of Turin
2015-2016 (Fall Semester) Fellow of the Walter Benjamin Kolleg, University of Bern
Spring 2015 Invited teacher in European Studies, University of Maastricht
Winter 2015 Fellow of the Center for InterAmerican Studies, University of Bielefeld
2014-2015 Lecturer (ATER) in Brazilian history and culture, University of La Rochelle
2013-2014 Lecturer (ATER) in German studies, University Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle
Spring 2013 Teaching contract in history, University of Bielefeld
2009-2014 Ph.D. in history, European University Institute, Florence
2006-2007 Student research assistant in history, University of Bielefeld
2005-2009 BA and MA in a bilingual studies program (history and German language didactic), University of Bielefeld, University Denis Diderot - Paris 7
Monograph:
Volkswagen in the Amazon: the Tragedy of Global Development in Modern Brazil. Cambridge University Press (Global and International History series), 2017. Warren Dean Memorial Prize's honorable mention 2018
Edited Volumes:
Brazil in the Great Acceleration. Special issue of Varia Historia, 34(65) | 2018. Co-editored with Georg Fischer.
Negotiating Nature in the Americas: Imaginaries and Interventions between Preservation and Exploitation. Special issue of the Forum for InterAmerican Research, 9(2) | 2016. Co-editored with Olaf Kaltmeier and Anne Tittor.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals & Encyclopedia:
Amazon Development. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. 2021, p.1-24.
“What Could Carbofascism look like? A Historical Perspective on Reactionary Politics in the Covid-19 Pandemic”, Journal for the History of Environment and Society 5 | 2020, p.135-148.
“A Different Story in the Anthropocene: Brazil’s Postcolonial Quest for Oil (1930-1975)” Past & Present, 249(1) | 2020, p.167-211.
winner of the Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Prize 2021
“The Nature of the Brazilian Flag: An Environmental Turn under Military Rule (1964-1985)”, Forum for InterAmerican Research, 13(1) | 2020, p.69-83.
“Historicizing Brazil's Great Acceleration”, Varia Historia, 34(65) | 2018. p.307-314. Co-authored with Georg Fischer.
“Nature, nation et histoire au pays du ‘développement’: les versions environnementales du passé brésilien”, Culture della Sostenibilità, 58 | 2018. p.48-59.
“Tales of the Transamazonian: Hopes and Disillusion on a Route of Ecological Migrations”, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Oxford University Press), 24(2) | 2017. p.306-324. Co-authored with Nathalia Capellini.
“The Social Production of Nature Between Coloniality and Capitalism ”, Forum for InterAmerican Research, 9(2) | 2016. p.5-24. Co-authored with Olaf Kaltmeier and Anne Tittor.
“The Greatest Fire on Earth: How VW and the Brazilian Military Regime Accidentally Helped to Turn the Amazon into a Global Political Arena” (bilingual in English and Portuguese), Revista Brasileira de História, 34(68) | 2014. p.13-33.
“The Brand that Knows our Land: Volkswagen's ‘Brazilianization’ in the ‘Economic Miracle’ (1968-1973), MONDE(S). Histoire, Espaces, Relations, 5 | 2014. p.199-218.
“Trabalho forçado na fazenda da Volks: crônica de um escândalo amazônico na Alemanha” , Hendu – Revista Latinoamericana de Derechos Humanos, 4(1) | 2014, p.57-69.
“Entre deux drapeaux : les ouvriers capverdiens au Portugal pendant la période révolutionnaire (1974-1976)”, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 21 | 2011, p.123-146.
Book Chapters:
“L'occasion manquée d'une éthique de la mondialisation ? Une étude des contradictions sociales, écologiques et mémorielles chez Volkswagen”, in Patricia Kottelat, ed., Ethique Contemporaine. Torino: Meti, 2020, forthcoming.
“Nature”, in Anne Tittor et al., eds, The Routledge Handbook to the Political Economy and Governance of the Americas. London: Routledge, 2019, 418-432. Co-authored with Olaf Kaltmeier and Anne Tittor.
"Apesar deles: le développement d'une pensée environnementale dans le Brésil des militaires", in James N. Green & Mônica Raisa Schpun, eds, 1964: La dictature brésilienne et son legs, Le Poisson volant, 2018. p.230-255.
"Trabalho forçado na fazenda da Volks: crônica de um escândalo amazônico na Alemanha”, in Ricardo R. Figueira, Adônia A. Prado & Edna M. Galvão, eds, Privação de liberdade ou atentado à dignidade: escravidão contemporânea, Mauad, 2013. p.165-180.
Others:
Review of Shawn William Miller, The Street Is Ours: Community, the Car, and the Nature of Public Space in Rio de Janeiro (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). American Historical Review 125(2) | 2020.
Review of Eve E. Buckley, Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth Century Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Environmental History 23(4) | 2018.
"Modeling Time in the Amazon." Review of Jeremy M. Campbell, Conjuring Property. Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon (University of Washington Press). H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews, 2017.
Environmental History 23(4) | 2018.“Amazon.” InterAmerican Wiki: Terms - Concepts - Critical Perspectives. www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/wiki/a_Amazon.html (2015).
Le Grand Débat: Déforestation, l'autre épidémie? (RTS, 09.07.2020)
L'Amérique Latine et le Brésil dans l'ombre du virus (Editorial IHEAL, 09.06.2020, with Juliette Dumont, Olivier Compagnon and Mélanie Toulhoat)
“Brésil: L’Europe peut agir en imposant de sévères sanctions diplomatiques et commerciales”, (Le Monde, 5.06.2020, with Maud Chiro, Anaïs Fléchet, Juliette Dumont and Olivier Compagnon). Translations in L'Internazionale, El País, El País Brasil, Público
TV debate on Amazon fires (Arrêt sur Images, 30.08.2019)
Bolsonaro achèvera-t-il son mandat à la tête du Brésil ? (Uzbek & Rica, 28.08.2019)
Amazonie en feu: interview de l'historien environnementaliste Antoine Acker (RTS, 23.08.2019)
Ditadura e Volkswagen promoveram "maior incêndio da história" na Amazônia (Brasil de Fato, 21.08.2019)
Sob Bolsonaro, visão militar volta a nortear desenvolvimento da Amazônia (O Eco, 30.07.2019)
In Search of Riches in the Rainforest (Blog of the Swiss National Museum, May 2019) Also available in German translation and on Watson.ch
CO2 Mon Amour: destruction de l'environnement au Brésil(France Inter, 11 May 2019)
A responsabilidade histórica da Volkswagen no Brasil de Bolsonaro (Carta Capital, 18 april 2019)
“Où va le Brésil?” (L’Ecologiste (French Edition of The Ecologist), April-June 2019), print.
“Globales Unternehmen, globale Vergangenheit : zur historischen Verantwortung VWs im Brasilien von Bolsonaro” (Geschichte der Gegenwart, 31.03.2019)
A Global Company with a Global Past: VW’s Historical Responsibility in Bolsonaro’s Brazil (Geschichte der Gegenwart, 31.03.2019)
Pour un réseau de solidarité internationale avec le Brésil (L'Humanité, 13.03.2019, with Sébastien Rozeaux)
Des Universitaires et artistes forment un réseau européen contre Jair Bolsonaro (Radio interview in Forum, RTS, 15.02.2019)
How Fascism Went Digital: A Historian's Perspective on Bolsonaro's Victory in Brazil (Geschichte der Gegenwart, 07.11.2018)
Wie der Faschismus digital wurde. Der Blick eines Historikers auf die Brasilienwahl (Geschichte der Gegenwart, 07.11.2018)
Face au risque Bolsonaro, la vigilance des observateurs internationaux sera cruciale (Le Monde, 30.10.2018, with Silvia Capanema)
L'élection de Jair Bolsonaro, une victoire pour l'agrobusiness brésilien (Radio interview in Forum, RTS, 29.10.2018)
CO2 Mon Amour(Radio interview on France Inter, 27.10.2018)
Lula, un prisonnier politique? (Le Temps, 07.05.2018)
Interview for ComoEuEscrevo (21.11.2017)
De carros a gado: o polêmico agronegócio da Volkswagen na Amazônia (Deutsche Welle, 26.06.2017)
1964, um golpe de classe contra o Brasil (Jornal dos Economistas, January 2016)
A Volkswagen e a carne da Cristalino (Valor Econômico, 9.10.2015)
FS21Dependance, Sovereignty and Development in Latin American History (BA Seminar)
FS20 Global history of climate change from theory to practice: a cross-cultural learning approach (MA Kolloquium with Shanghai University)
HS19 Mensch und Umwelt (BA ProSeminar)
HS19 AnthropoSouth? Writing a post-colonial history of the Anthropocene (MA Kolloquium)
FS18 Multinationale Unternehmen in der historischen Verantwortung: Forschung, Archiv, Kommunikation (MA Kolloquium)
HS18 Frankreich und die Globalgeschichte (BA Kolloquium)
HS18 Latin America and Africa: connected histories (BA Seminar)
FS18 The fuel of globalization: transnational histories of the petroleum century (BA Seminar)