Academic profile
I work at the intersection of early modern environmental history and cultural history. My current research reframes early modern improvement literature through contemporary frameworks of environmental ethics and care theory, revealing preindustrial agrarian economies as sites of environmental stewardship, labour of care and maintenance, and multispecies cohabitation. Both in research and teaching, I focus on historical dimensions of societally relevant topics, methodologically combining rigorous archival research with interdisciplinary methods drawn from microhistory, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. My second monograph, under contract with the Routledge Microhistories book series, explores the intersection of microhistory, ethics of care, and environmental humanities. Since 2023, I serve as Co-Head of the interdisciplinary KLIMER: climate, environment, and energy research group. I am passionate about science communication and the digital transformation of traditional academic teaching formats, as evidenced by my recent completion of a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Digital Teaching and Learning Cultures at the Zurich Academy of the Arts (2025).
Academic positions
- 2022-currently Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo
- 2021-2022 Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Cultural History, University of Warsaw
- 2020-2021 Swiss Excellence Grant Fellow, Institute of History, University of Bern
- 2018-2020 Assistant Lecturer in Cultural Studies, University of Warsaw
Education
- 2025 Certificate of Advanced Studies in Digitale Lehr- und Lernkulturen, Zurich Academy of the Arts
- 2018 Ph.D. (Hons) in Cultural Studies, University of Warsaw
- 2011 MA (Hons) in Cultural Studies, University of Warsaw
Awards
- Academia 2021 in the category ‘Best academic and scientific book,’ awarded at the 11th Warsaw Book Fair 2021 for The Chopin Games (Warsaw University Press 2021)
- Third-Degree Individual Award for Scientific Achievements (2020), University of Warsaw
- Gaudeamus 2019 from the Polish Academic Publishers Association for Archaeology of Care (Warsaw University Press 2019)
Recent and forthcoming publications
- Arendt, Ada. (forthcoming). “Sustainability, Ethics and Care.” In M. Middeke, G. Rippl & H. Zapf (eds.), Handbook of Cultural Sustainability (De Gruyter Handbooks of English and American Studies: Text and Theory). Berlin: De Gruyter.
- Arendt, Ada. 2026. “Rethinking Evidence, Scale, and Causation: The Methodological Intersection of Microhistory and Environmental History.” Bloomsbury Handbook of Microhistory. Origins, Present State, and Prospects, ed. by Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, Thomas Cohen, Deivy Carneiro. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 287-304.
- Arendt, Ada. 2025. Archaeology of Care. A Proposal on How to Read Almanac Annotations. Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte 27: 35-52.
Recent and upcoming public talks
- 9/2025 “Unseeing the Split: More-than-Human Care and Maintenance in the Early Anthropocene” - paper at the STS-CH Conference “Holding Things Together? Change, Continuity, Critique?” University of Zurich/ETH Zurich, Switzerland
- 8/2025 Is There a Nordic Way of Doing Microhistory? - panel at the 31st Congress of Nordic Historians, University of Iceland (cancelled)
- 7/2025 Neue Sichtbarkeit: Potenziale von multispecies Ansätzen in der Geschichtswissenschaft - panel at the 7. Schweizerische Geschichtstage, University of Lucerne, Switzerland
- 5/2025 Annotations of Care: Two Early Modern Almanac-Keepers Seen Through Their Marginalia 1668– 1701 - paper at symposium Usable Temporalities: Time and Writing in Early Modern Almanacs and Calendars, Universität Freiburg, Switzerland
- 5/2025 Care as Historical Praxis: Methodological Considerations in Studying Early Modern Human-Environment Relationships, online talk, University of Durham, UK
- 2/2025 Panelist in a public debate on History for Climate, Museum of Polish History in Warsaw, Poland
Research projects
- 2016–2020 Cultural History of the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition 1927-2015, financed by National Science Centre, Poland, as Co-investigator
- 2012–2014 Mnemonics and Cultural Memory in the Former Ages, financed by Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland, as Co-investigator
International collaborations
- 2024-2030 Mercator Fellow in the DFG-funded Emmy-Noether research group Die Spuren der Kleinen Eiszeit in der Literatur der frühen Neuzeit (1570–1780), led by Joana van de Löcht, University of Münster
Active memberships
- European Society for Environmental History
- Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Geschichte (Swiss Historical Society)
- International Society for Cultural History
Teaching in the 2025/2026 academic year
- HIS2980 – Mapping Schools of History
- HIS4227 Introduction to Global Environmental History
- PhD workshop: Approaching Environmental Temporalities
Research supervision
I welcome BA and MA students interested in the history of early modern Central and Eastern Europe; working with popular print sources; interested in temporality or environmental ethics of care; employing the methods of microhistory, historical anthropology, or speculative research.