معرفی
Dr. Natacha Klein Kafer serves as Assistant Professor in Church History at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Theology, where her research interrogates historical intersections of health, privacy, and healing practices across early modern trans-imperial contexts. Her work examines suppressed popular healing knowledge, witch trials, colonial medical encounters, and the framing of health through secrecy and superstition.
Education:
- PhD in History, Free University of Berlin (2017)
- MA in Religious Studies, University of Erfurt (2013)
- BA in History, Federal University of Santa Maria (2010)
Research Focus: Klein Kafer investigates how health was conceptualized across empires through trans-Atlantic healing knowledge transmission, particularly analyzing the survival of folk medicine in private spheres despite institutional suppression. Her methodology bridges medical anthropology, gender studies, and legal history to explore connections between death, secrecy, and colonial power structures, with emphasis on German-Brazilian contexts and Atlantic World pharmaceutical slavery.
Publication Trends: Recent articles (2024-2025) reveal expanding interdisciplinary scope, moving from textual analysis of healing charms to contemporary AI privacy ethics. Key thematic clusters include maritime privacy dynamics, gendered knowledge production in households, and decolonial critiques of medical patents, with increasing engagement with Caribbean slavery and digital humanities methodologies.
Awards:
- MSCA Seal of Excellence (2023)
Academic Engagement: Klein Kafer actively organizes international conferences including 'Prompt Engineering and AI Models for Historical Sources' (2025) and 'Podcasting for Academics' workshops. Her external role as organizer for Contecte Humanidades Digitais at Federal University of Santa Maria demonstrates sustained commitment to digital history infrastructure development across continents.
