Dr. Sarah Lentz

Research Associate

Email: slentz(at)uni-bremen.de
Office: GW2, Room B2327
Tel.: +49 421 218-67221

Vita

Since 10|2018: Postdoctoral Research Associate Division for Early Modern History, History Department, University of Bremen, Project: All in the Same Boat? Uneven Mobilities, Being on the Move as a Practice and Social Sites in Motion in the Early Modern Period

12|2023–09|2024: Parental Leave

08|2019–11|2020: Parental Leave

Since 10|2018: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Division for Early Modern History, History Department, University of Bremen (on parental leave from August 2019 to October 2020)

10|2012–09|2018: Doctoral Research Associate, Division for Early Modern History, History Department, University of Bremen

Title of Dissertation: “Wer helfen kann, der helfe!” Deutsche SklavereigegnerInnen und die atlantische Abolitionsbewegung, 1780–1860 (“Who is able to help, should help!” German Opponents of Slavery and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, c. 1780–1860)

08|2009–03|2015: Lecturer in the Junior Year Abroad Program of Smith College, Hamburg

2009–12: Lecturer in the Junior Year Abroad Program, Smith College, Hamburg

03|2007–07|2012: Several positions as Academic Tutor and Research Associate (without degree), Chair of North American, Caribbean and Atlantic History, University of Hamburg and as Student Assistant in the German Research Foundation (DFG) project ‘Genese und Transformation atlantischer Netzwerke’ (Genesis and Transformation of Atlantic Networks)

10|2004–02|2012: Magistra Artium M.A. in History, University of Hamburg, Germany

Major: History, Minors: Media Studies and Modern German Literature
Title of M.A. Thesis: Deutsche Kaufleute und die Finanzierung der US-Regierung im Krieg von 1812 (German Merchants and the Financing of the US-American Government during the War of 1812)

08|2008–06|2009: Diploma in American Studies at Smith College, Massachusetts, USA (Scholarship)

Title of Diploma Thesis: Climbing the Social Ladder? German Merchants from Hamburg in Early 19th-Century Boston

Awards and Fellowships

7|2025 International workshop Transient Communities and Spaces of Mobility: Theories, Methods, and Themes in Early Modern Mobilities History (10.000 EUR by the Institute for Advanced Study)

Seit 2024 Associated Researcher of the Prize Papers Project, National Archives, London / Universität Oldenburg

07|2021–07|2025: Associate Junior Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, Gemany

2021 Impulses for research projects, University of Bremen: Funds for a student assistant for my research project on German speaking profiteers of Atlantic slavery (2.500 EUR)

08|2020: Funding by the Open Access Publishing Fund for Monographs of the Leibniz Association (Doctoral thesis)

2020: Award for the best dissertation of the University of Bremen (Studienpreis der Universität Bremen)

2017: Fellow at the Leibniz Institute for European History Mainz (IEG)

2016: Fellow at the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, University of Liverpool

2008–2009: Full Scholarship at Smith College, Massachusetts, USA

Publications

Books

  • Sarah Lentz: "Wer helfen kann, der helfe!" Deutsche SklavereigegnerInnen un die atlantische Abolitionsbewegung, 1780-1860, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2020 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz 261).

Reviews (Selection):

  • Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2021 (together with Rebekka von Mallinckrodt and Josef Köstlbauer).

Reviews (Selection):

Journal Articles (Peer reviewed)

  • “Deconstructing a National Hero: The Changing Representation of the Prussian Sailor and Slave Trader Joachim Nettelbeck, 1807 to Present,” History & Memory 36 (Autumn/Winter 2024) 2, pp. 37–72 (together with Urs Lindner).
  • "Practicing Medicine on Shaky Grounds: German-Speaking Ship's Doctors Aboard Enslavement Trade Vessels," Journal of Global Slavery 8 (2023), pp. 207-236.
  • “Overlooked Inhabitants of the “Wooden World:” Children as Passengers Aboard Eighteenth-Century Sailing Vessels,” Yearbook of Women’s History 41 (2022), pp. 33–46.
  • “David Parish, Alexander Baring and the US-American Government Loan of 1813: The Role of Nationality and Patriotism in Transatlantic Financial Networks in Times of War,” London Journal of Canadian Studies 29 (2013), pp. 68–89.

Papers

  • “Alle an Bord! Plädoyer für eine intersektionale Analyse frühneuzeitlicher Schiffsgemeinschaften,” in R. Schilling (ed.), Das Schiff als Transitraum (forthcoming 2025).
  • “Van de Weezer” zum Versklavungshandel: Niedersächsische und Bremer Mannschaftsmitglieder auf den Schiffen der Middelburgschen Commercie Compagnie,” in H. Steinführer and M. Buck (eds.), Aspekte des Kolonialen in der Geschichte von Niedersachsen und Bremen, Göttingen (forthcoming 2025) (Reihe der Historischen Kommission).
  • “Casual Bystanders or “Confederates”? Members of the Prussian Entourage and the Question of Slavery in the Context of the Congress of Vienna,” in M. Vec (ed.): The Congress of Vienna and the Law of Nations, Oxford (forthcoming 2025).
  • “El traficante de esclavos y “héroe nacional” Joachim Nettelbeck como figura controvertida de la cultura de memoria alemana,” in J. Kemner et al (eds.), Memorias urbanas en conflicto (forthcoming 2025).
  • “Domestiken,” Versklavte und Bedienstete: Schwarze Menschen in Bremen um 1800,” in N. Aselmeyer and V. Kamche (eds.), “Stadt der Kolonien:” Wie Bremen den Kolonialismus prägte, Freiburg im Breisgau 2024, pp. 123–27 (together with Jasper H. Hagedorn).
  • “Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850,” in Cornermann (ed.), The Strong Asymmetrical Dependency Studies Reader, Bonn 2024, pp. 378–402, https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/images/pdf-files/bcdss-reader-1st-ed.pdf (together with Rebekka von Mallinckrodt and Josef Köstlbauer).
  • “Abolitionismus: Augen zu und weiter so,” in J. Lörcher and F. Patalong (eds.), Die Sklaverei und die Deutschen: Eine Geschichte von Ausbeutung, Profit und Verdrängung, München 2024, pp. 109–18.
  • “German Slavery and Its Legacies: On History, Activism and a Black German Past,” in S. Cornermann et al. (eds.), Cultural Heritage and Slavery: Perspectives from Europe, Boston 2023, pp. 303–32 (together with Annika Bärwald).
  • “Abolitionismus: Augen zu und weiter so,” in Spiegel Geschichte 5 (2022), pp. 98–104.
  • “Oh, wonderful sugar beet! You are the death of the bloody sugar cane:” The German Debate on the Morality of the Consumption of Sugar Produced by Slave Labour Around 1800,” in Brahm and E. Rosenhaft (eds.), Global Commerce and Economic Conscience in Europe, 1700–1900, Oxford 2022, pp. 171–89.
  • “Introduction,” in R. von Mallinckrodt, J. Köstlbauer and S. Lentz (eds.), Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery, the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, Berlin/Boston 2021, pp. 1–25 (together with Rebekka von Mallinckrodt and Josef Köstlbauer).
  • “No German Ship is Involved in the Slave Trade!” The Public Controversy about German Participation in the Slave Trade during the 1840s,” in R. von Mallinckrodt, J. Köstlbauer and S. Lentz (eds.), Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, Berlin/Boston 2021, pp. 286–311.
  • “Deutsche Profiteure des atlantischen Sklavereisystems und der deutschsprachige Sklavereidiskurs der Spätaufklärung,” in P. Burschel and S. Juterczenka (eds.), Das Meer. Maritime Welten in der Frühen Neuzeit, Köln 2021, pp. 581–97.
  • “Abolitionists in the German Hinterland? Therese Huber and the Spread of Antislavery Sentiment in the German Territories around 1800,” in Felix Brahm and Eve Rosenhaft (eds.): Slavery Hinterland: Transatlantic Slavery and Continental Europe, 1680–1850, London: Boydell Press, 2016, pp. 187–211.
  • “[E]ine viel wichtigere Persönlichkeit [...] als der Präsident selbst:” David Parish und die Finanzierung der US-Regierung im Krieg von 1812,” in Rolf Hammel-Kiesow, Heiko Herold and Claudia Schnurmann (eds.): Die hanseatisch-amerikanischen Beziehungen seit 1790, Trier 2017, Porta Alba Verlag, pp. 35–64.

Exhibition Catalog

  • “Hamburger Impressionen:” Das Historische Seminar – Die Universität – Die Stadt – 1907–2007, Hamburg 2008, 50 p. (together with Nina Wilm).

Bibliographies, Reviews and Minor Publications

  • Review of „Jürgen Overhoff and Sebastian Lange (eds.), Sklaverei und Sklavenhandel in den Bilderbüchern der Aufklärung: Ein kommentierter Quellenband, Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2024, 143 p.,” in Lessing Yearbook (forthcoming 2025).
  • Review of “David Silkenat, Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, 272 pp.,” in Historische Zeitschrift 318 (2024) 1, pp. 209–211.
  • “German Influences in America,” Oxford Bibliographies Online in Atlantic History (2023): https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0393.xml (together with Claudia Schnurmann et al).
  • „Archivalie des Monats: Das Tagebuch der Caroline von Aschen,“ Blog des Deutschen Schifffahrtsmuseums / Leibniz-Institut für Maritime Geschichte, 01.05.2023, https://www.dsm.museum/museum/neuigkeiten/archivalie-des-monats-das-tagebuch-der-caroline-von-aschen.
  • “Universities,” Oxford Bibliographies Online in Atlantic History (2012): https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0171.xml (together with Claudia Schnurmann and Anna Groeben).

Presentations and Conferences

12|2024 Lunch Talks, Universität Bremen: All in the Same Boat? Uneven Mobilities between Norm and Practice, 1600–1800

09|2023 Organizer of the Panel Scales of Mobilities in the Age of Coach, Caravane, and Sail (together with Prof. Dr. Philip Hahn), at the Historikertag, Leipzig, my presentation: Early Modern Stagecoaches as Social Sites in Motion

06|2023 Colloquium for Early Modern History, Universität Frankfurt am Main (invited): „Wer die schändlichsten Begegnungen […] sehen will, der muß auf Sklavenschiffen fahren.” Wundärzte aus dem deutschsprachigen Mitteleuropa im transatlantischen Versklavtenhandel

06|2023 Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Globalgeschichte (invited): Besatzungsmitglieder aus dem deutschsprachigen Mitteleuropa auf Sklavenschiffen am Beispiel von Schiffsärzten

05|2023 Commentator (invited) at the Symposium Neues vom amerikanischen Weinberg. Das Halle-Pennsylvania-Projekt und die atlantische Geschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Franckesche Stiftungen, Halle

01|2023 Historische Gesellschaft zu Nienburg/Weser (invited): Zur Verflechtung Bremens und Niedersachsens mit der atlantischen Versklavtenwirtschaft im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (together with Jasper Hagedorn)

06|2022 Annual Meeting of the Historische Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen (invited): „[U]nsere weiß-roth-weiße Flagge ohne Flecken"? Bremische Verflechtungen mit der atlantischen Versklavtenwirtschaft im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (together with Jasper Hagedorn)

06|2022 Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte (invited), „Keinen Adel, keine Patrizier, keine Sklaven“? Sklavenhandel, atlantische Sklaverei und Anti-Sklaverei in Hamburg (together with Annika Bärwald)

06|2022 Colloquium for Atlantic History, Universität Hamburg (invited): Deutschsprachige Mannschaftsmitglieder an Bord europäischer Versklavungshandelsschiffe

09|2021 Deutscher Historikertag, München: Deutsche Sklavenhalter und -profiteure in Surinam und der Transfer von Wissen über eine deutsche Involviertheit in die Sklavenwirtschaft im späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert, Panel Die angebliche Abwesenheit deutscher Akteure im transatlantischen Sklavenhandel

09|2021 Conference Cultural Heritage and Slavery: Perspectives from Europe, Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn (invited): Forgotten Representatives of the „German Atlantic“: German-Speaking Crew Members Aboard European Slaving Vessels

05|2021 Workshop The Ship as a Space of Transit, Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven (invited): The Underbelly of a “German Atlantic”? German-speaking Crew Members aboard European Enslavement Trade Ships,

09|3|2021 Expert Interview for Decolonize Erfurt (invited): The German Critique of Slavery around 1820

10|2020 Workshop Transnational History and Anti-Slavery Movements, University of Bochum (invited): “A Communion of Minds with Minds”? German Anti-Slavery Activism and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Mid-19th Century,

9|2020 Colloquium for Modern and Contemporary History, University of Gießen (invited): Transnational Networks, Cooperation and Transfers of Ideas. German Anti-Slavery Activism and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the 19th Century

3|2019 2nd Conference for Young Academics of the Gesellschaft für Überseegeschichte (GÜSG), Schloss Schney, Lichtenfels (invited): Of German Slave Overseers and Plantation Owners. Germans in Suriname and the Transfer of Knowlege about Slavery and the Slave Trade around 1800

11|2018 Co-organizer of the international conference Traces of the Slave Trade in the Holy Roman Empire and its Successor States. Discourses, Practices, and Objects, 1500–1850, in Bremen (2nd conference of the ERC project The Holy Roman Empire and its Slaves), title of paper: “No German Ship is Involved in the Slave Trade.” The Public Controversy about German Participation in the Slave Trade during the 1840s

10|2017 German Early Modern History Day 2017 The Sea. Maritime Worlds in the Early Modern Period, Wolfenbüttel: Abolitionists in the “German Hinterlands” and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Late Enlightenment Period,

09|2017 Colloquium of the Leibniz Institute for European History, Mainz: German Abolitionists and the Boycott of Sugar during the First Half of the 19th Century

07|2017 Colloquium for Modern History of Western Europe, University of Freiburg (invited): German Abolitionists and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement during the First Half of the 19th Century,

06|2017 Conference Moralizing Commerce in a Globalizing World. Multidisciplinary Approaches to a History of Economic Conscience, 1600–1900, German Historical Institute, London: The German Debate on the Morality of the Consumption of Sugar Produced by Slave Labour Around 1800

09|2016 Colloquium of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, University of Liverpool: Therese Huber and the Spread of Antislavery Sentiment in the German Territories around 1800

06|2015 Conference The Congress of Vienna: Results and Perspectives, German Historical Institute, Paris: „[K]ind[ling] a Flame all round Vienna, which will greatly aid our Cause“: The Lobbying of British Abolitionists at the Congress of Vienna: The Example of the Prussian Legation

11|2013 Conference Black Presence and Practices of Enslavement in 18th Century Central and Northern Europe, University of Bremen: German Abolitionists and the Abolitionist Movement in Europe around 1800

07|2012 Conference The War of 1812: Myth and Memory, History and Historiography, University of London: The American Government Loan of 1813: The Role of Nationality, Patriotism, and Public Opinion in Transatlantic Financial Networks in Times of War

08|2010 Summer Academy of Atlantic History, European Early American Studies Association, Universität Bayreuth: The Editing of the Correspondence of Francis and Mathilde Lieber