MPI of Geoanthropology, Department Structural Changes of the Technosphere
Dr. Benjamin Steininger is a cultural theorist, a historian of science and technology, and a curator. He is as postdoc at the MPI of Geoanthropology, Jena. From 2019 until 2025 he was also affiliated to the Cluster of Excellence “Unifying Systems of Catalysis” (UniSysCat), TU Berlin.
He finished his studies of cultural theory and philosophy at HU-Berlin with a book on the history of the German Reichsautobahn. He wrote his dissertation at the University of Vienna on the ‘Catalyst as a key principle of the 20th Century’. His main research topics are the role of catalysis chemistry and fossil resources in modernity and Anthropocene and the transformation of chemistry (#Chemiewende).
Since 2012, he contributed to the Anthropocene program at ‚Haus der Kulturen der Welt‘ (HKW), Berlin. Since 2016 he was affiliated to the Anthropocene research group at MPI of History of Science. In 2016, together with Alexander Klose, he founded the research collective ‘Beauty of Oil’ (beauty-of-oil.org). 2021/2022 exhibition ‘Oil. Beauty and Horror in the Petrolage’ at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2022 ‘Petro-Melancholia’ ARTE/ZDF documentary by Matthias Frick on their project. In 2024 the english version of their ‚Atlas of Petromodernity‘ was published. In 2024/2025 together with Nona Schulte-Römer from HU-Berlin, Benjamin Steininger produced the podcast ‘Synthesizer – Zur Zukunft von Chemie und Gesellschaft’.