Gisela Hürlimann (Dresden): Das raffinierte Tier. Zur Wirtschafts- und Technikgeschichte sogenannter Schlachtnebenprodukte / Refined Animality. Processing Slaughter By-Products in the Industrial Age

Zeit: 16:00 - 18:00 Uhr

Vortrag von Gisela Hürlimann (Dresden) im Berlin-Brandenburger Colloquium (BBC) für Umweltgeschichte im Sommersemester 2022

Veranstalter des BBC für Umweltgeschichte:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin) in Kooperation mit dem Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF Potsdam) und mit dem Kolloquium des Fachgebiets Technikgeschichte der TU Berlin (Heike Weber)
Organisation: Dr. Jan-Henrik Meyer (ZZF Potsdam), Dr. Astrid M. Kirchhof (HU Berlin)

Abstract:
In the fast growing cities of the late 19th century, the handling of slaughter waste became both an environmental challenge and a commercial chance. The newly constructed or reformed slaughterhouses were not only a site for the publicly regulated meat supply, but also part of the medical-hygienic and industrial complex. As such, they can be conceived as a trading zone for the afterlife of farm animals: for rendering their „biotrash“ (Naomi Pfeiffer 2010) into a polyvalent resource for industrial, scientific and pharmaceutical uses. Quentin Deluermoz and François Jarrige (2017) ascribed farm animals the capacity to offer a subtle technology for human-animal interaction, and a constant potential for perfection. This is, though, not only true for animal labor or animal products such as milk, eggs, manure – and meat. Rather, it also applies to the refinement and usage of slaugther by-products in the industrial age – an underexplored dimension in animal or commodity history as well as in the history of technology.

Short Bio:
Gisela Hürlimann is Professor for the History of Technology and for Economic History at the Technical University (TU) Dresden. Her current publications include Not Paying Taxes. Histories of Tax Avoidance, Evasion and Resistance, Routledge forthcoming 2022 (with K. Schönhärl and D. Rohde), Staging History: Anniversaries in European Institutions of Higher Learning from 1850 to the Present, De Gruyter 2022 (with A.F. Guhl) and Auf den Spuren des Nutztiers (traverse 2-2021, with A. Elsig et al.)