• Globale Umweltgeschichte
• Theorien und Methoden der Globalgeschichte
• Imperialismus, Infrastruktur und More-Than-Human Histories
• Geschichte des Kapitalismus und Koloniale Logistik

Nature’s Highway: Environment and Infrastructure in the Straits of Malacca, c.1870–1910s

This PhD project explores how the Straits of Malacca became one of the world’s most important transit corridors during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It examines how imperial powers transformed this dynamic maritime region into a “natural highway” through mapping, engineering, and environmental control. Using the concept of environmental infrastructure, the project shows how natural processes and human interventions together created new routes of global mobility and trade. By linking environmental change, imperial expansion, and technological innovation, it reveals how the infrastructures of empire laid the foundations for today’s global logistics networks — and how their ecological consequences remain visible in the present.

Seit Februar 2021: Assistent für Europäische und Globalgeschichte am Europainstitut der Universität Basel

Dezember 2018 – Januar 2021: Hilfsassistent im SNF-Forschungsprojekt Printed Markets. Information, Data and News in the Basel Avisblatt, 1729–1844

August 2018 – Januar 2021: Hilfsassistent am Departement Geschichte, Universität Basel (Lehrstuhl von Prof. Dr. Susanna Burghartz)

Februar 2018 – Dezember 2020: M.A. in Geschichte und Politikwissenschaften, Universität Basel (summa cum laude),
Titel der Masterarbeit: Die „Indochina Operational Group“ 1972–1975. A Global Humanitarian Moment

September 2014 – Dezember 2017: B.A. in Geschichte und Geographie, Universität Basel

Lars von Felten-Kury, "Wildlife Corridors: Animal Mobilities and Environmental Infrastructure in the Straits Settlements, c.1870s–1920s," Environment and History 0 (2025), 1–26 (ahead of print), https://doi.org/10.3828/whpeh.63861480345877.

Lars von Felten-Kury, "Forschen – Vernetzen – Vermitteln. Die Forschungsstelle «Diplomatische Dokumente der Schweiz» (Dodis),” traverse: Zeitschrift für Geschichte – Revue d’Histoire 1 (2025), https://revue-traverse.ch/article/forschen-vernetzen-vermitteln-die-forschungsstelle-diplomatische-dokumente-der-schweiz-dodis/.

Lars von Felten-Kury, Review of: "Andreas Greiner, Human Porterage and Colonial State Formation in German East Africa, 1880s–1914: Tensions of Transport”, Sehepunkte 24, 15 May 2024, https://www.sehepunkte.de/2024/05/38713.html.

Lars von Felten-Kury, “Flowing Connections in the Strait of Malacca: Nature, Trade, and the Rise of a Global Transit Corridor, c. 1850-1900”, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 70 (2022), 41–66, https://www.ghi-dc.org/fileadmin/publications/Bulletin/bu70/GHI-70_04FEAKuryStraitsofMalacca_3pp_41-66.pdf. 

Lars von Felten-Kury and Lars Dickmann, “Souvenirs aus Meiji Japan”, in Tina Asmussen et al. (eds.) Materialized Histories. Eine Festschrift 2.0. (Basel: Hypotheses), https://mhistories.hypotheses.org/2171.