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 (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

07|2021–07|2024: Associate Junior Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, Gemany

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 und die atlantische Abolitionsbewegung, 1780–1860, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2020 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz 261).
  • Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Josef Köstlbauer and Sarah Lentz (eds.): Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter [forthcoming August 2021].

Papers

  • “No German Ship is Involved in the Slave Trade!” The Public Controversy about German Participation in the Slave Trade during the 1840s, in: Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Josef Köstlbauer and Sarah Lentz (eds.): Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter [forthcoming August 2021].
  • Introduction (in co-operation with Rebekka von Mallinckrodt and Josef Köstlbauer), in: Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Josef Köstlbauer and Sarah Lentz (eds.): Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany, 1650–1850, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter [forthcoming August 2021].
  • “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: Felix Brahm and Eve Rosenhaft (eds.): Moralizing Commerce in a Globalizing World, Oxford University Press [forthcoming 2021].
  • Deutsche Profiteure des atlantischen Sklavereisystems und der deutschsprachige Sklavereidiskurs der Spätaufklärung, in: Sünne Juterczenka et al. (eds.): Das Meer. Maritime Welten in der Frühen Neuzeit, Köln: Böhlau [forthcoming 2021].
  • 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, in: London Journal of Canadian Studies 29 [forthcoming 2021].
  • 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, 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, 35–64.

Exhibitions Catalog

  • Sarah Lentz and Nina Wilm: “Hamburger Impressionen”. Das Historische Seminar – Die Universität – Die Stadt – 1907–2007, Hamburg 2008, 50 p.

Presentations and Conferences (Selection)

  • 05|2021: The Underbelly of a “German Atlantic”? German-speaking Crew Members aboard European Enslavement Trade Ships, Workshop: The Ship as a Space of Transit, Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven (invited)
  • 09|3|2021: The German Critique of Slavery around 1820, Expert Interview for Decolonize Erfurt (invited)
  • 10|2020: “A Communion of Minds with Minds”? German Anti-Slavery Activism and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Mid-19th Century, Workshop: Transnational History and Anti-Slavery Movements, University of Bochum (invited)
  • 9|2020: Transnational Networks, Cooperation and Transfers of Ideas. German Anti-Slavery Activism and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the 19th Century, Colloquium for Modern and Contemporary History, University of Gießen (invited)
  • 3|2019: Of German Slave Overseers and Plantation Owners. Germans in Suriname and the Transfer of Knowlege about Slavery and the Slave Trade around 1800, 2nd Conference for Young Academics of the Gesellschaft für Überseegeschichte (GÜSG), Schloss Schney, Lichtenfels (invited)
  • 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: Abolitionists in the “German Hinterlands” and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Late Enlightenment Period, German Early Modern History Day 2017: The Sea. Maritime Worlds in the Early Modern Period, Wolfenbüttel
  • 09|2017: German Abolitionists and the Boycott of Sugar during the First Half of the 19th Century, Colloquium of the Leibniz Institute for European History, Mainz
  • 07|2017: German Abolitionists and the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement during the First Half of the 19th Century, Colloquium for Modern History of Western Europe, University of Freiburg (invited)
  • 06|2017: The German Debate on the Morality of the Consumption of Sugar Produced by Slave Labour Around 1800, Conference: Moralizing Commerce in a Globalizing World. Multidisciplinary Approaches to a History of Economic Conscience, 1600–1900, German Historical Institute, London
  • 09|2016: Therese Huber and the Spread of Antislavery Sentiment in the German Territories around 1800, Colloquium of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, University of Liverpool
  • 06|2015: „[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, Conference: The Congress of Vienna: Results and Perspectives, German Historical Institute, Paris
  • 11|2013: German Abolitionists and the Abolitionist Movement in Europe around 1800, Conference: Black Presence and Practices of Enslavement in 18th Century Central and Northern Europe, University of Bremen
  • 07|2012: The American Government Loan of 1813: The Role of Nationality, Patriotism, and Public Opinion in Transatlantic Financial Networks in Times of War, Conference: The War of 1812: Myth and Memory, History and Historiography, University of London
  • 08|2010: The Editing of the Correspondence of Francis and Mathilde Lieber, Summer Academy of Atlantic History, European Early American Studies Association, Universität Bayreuth