Tenth Annual
Graduate Student Symposium on Transatlantic History – 2008
Upcoming Symposium Past Symposia
Transatlantic Exploration in the Era of Humboldt
Thursday, October 1st 2009
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Library Parlor, Sixth Floor, Central Library, UTA Central Campus
Otto Roth von Holzstich,
“Alexander von Humboldt und Aimé Bonpland
in der Urwaldhütte am
Orinoco,” 1870, #00009295, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), German naturalist
and explorer, is considered the first scholar to describe the Americas in a
modern scientific context. His explorations of Latin America and his
visit to the United States in 1804 had profound economic, political, and social
effects on the nations of the Atlantic Basin. Humboldt’s work greatly
influenced how the Europe viewed, explored, and codified the transatlantic
world. In celebration of his achievements, and on the sesquicentennial
anniversary of his death, THSO is proud to present this symposium on
transatlantic exploration, travel writing, and cartography in the era of
Humboldt.
Transatlantic Exploration in the Era
of Humboldt
PROGRAM
***
“The
Tropical Gaze: Travelers and the Construction of the Caribbean Landscape in the
Age of Humboldt”
Jeff Dillman
University of Texas at
Arlington
Travelers and explorers played an important role in
shaping the ideal of the tropical as applied to the Caribbean in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Building on a foundation first
laid by early modern thinkers and further developed by
colonists and naturalists, visitors to the West Indies constructed the idea of
a tropical landscape through description, sketches, and natural history.
Travelers such as Humboldt, Waterton, and Schomburgk provided a critical element in the formation of
a persistent landscape construction in the Caribbean.
“How the West was Known:
Local Science and Empire in the Lower Mississippi and Early United States”
Cameron B. Strang
University of Texas at Austin
Most historians view science in the early U.S. West as
something brought with them from eastern scientific centers. Yet when the
U.S. expanded towards the Mississippi, it encountered a region with an
established, multinational scientific community closely tied to the scientific
network of the West Indies. Far from using scientific explorers to
“discover” the Lower Mississippi, the U.S. co-opted the existing scientific
community and its knowledge of local geography, climate, and natural resources
to further the republic’s own imperialist goal of profiting from western
expansion.
“Transatlantic Correspondence and ‘Mobile Knowledge’
in Alexander von Humboldt’s Exploration Travel to Hispanic America”
Andrés Jiménez Ángel
Catholic University
Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Alexander von Humboldt’s correspondence is an example
of the emergence of the transatlantic scientific networks as the basis of what Ottmar Ette defines as “mobile
knowledge.” Besides their importance as media of communication with
scholars worldwide, letters played a central role as instruments to assure the
necessary material conditions and the strategic social and academic connections
to pursue his research in Hispanic America and to simultaneously diffuse its
results among the European scientific community. His exploration travel was a
paradigmatic way of “diffusing” science from center to peripheries and relied
heavily on the cooperation from strategic social groups.
“Humboldt in
the Brazilian Imagination”
Jörn Seemann
Louisiana State University
Accounts differ concerning Humboldt’s physical connections
with Brazil: some accounts have him stopping short of the border between Brazil
and Spanish territory, while others have him transgressing the frontier. Had he
been apprehended on Brazilian territory, Portuguese authorities would have
imprisoned him and sent him to Lisbon for sanction. The counter-factual
implications of such an event are far-reaching; it is difficult to imagine what
might have become of Humboldt if he was deprived of his epochal voyage of
exploration. Humboldt’s impact on Brazil, among other things, encouraged a
number of German scientists, artists, and scholars to visit or immigrate to
southern Latin America, altering the history of the region.
Keynote Speaker
“Jefferson, Humboldt, and the Mapping of
Louisiana Territory”
Ralph Ehrenberg
Mr. Ehrenberg, a Fellow of the Society
for the History of Discoveries, is a former archivist and administrator at
the National Archives and the Library of Congress and author of such acclaimed
works as The Mapping of America (with Seymour Schwartz) and Mapping
the World: An Illustrated History of Cartography.
His keynote address, tentatively entitled “Jefferson,
Humboldt, and the Mapping of Louisiana Territory,” will describe the exploratory
mapping of the Louisiana Purchase, which involved considerable transatlantic
exchange of geographical data and maps, including Humboldt’s visit to
Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
A special thank you to the
Participants and audience members enjoying the papers:
THSO President Mylynka
speaks as everyone listens raptly
Ralph Ehrenberg chatting with Kit Goodwin
Jeff Dillman enduring some
constructive criticism from Dr. Morris
Professors listen intently
Transatlantic History Doctoral Program
THSO, Department of History, Box 19529, 601 S. Nedderman Drive, 201 University Hall, Arlington, TX 76019
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