Alexander von Humboldt

Description

Alexander von Humboldt: Perceiving the World provides an interdisciplinary exploration into Humboldt’s approach to seeing and describing the many subjects he pursued. Though remembered primarily as an environmental thinker, Humboldt’s interests were vast and documented not just in his published works, but also in his extensive correspondence with scientists, artists, poets, and philosophers internationally. Perceiving the World covers Humboldt’s perceptions during intercontinental travels and scientific discoveries, as well as how he visualized nature, geography, environments, and diverse cultures, including Indigenous Peoples.

This collection draws heavily on the English translations of Humboldt’s work housed in the Purdue University Archives, which were collected by John Purdue. The book is divided into three parts: Humboldt’s contributions to science since the nineteenth century; his work on nature, climates, environments, and the cosmos; and his lasting cultural impact, including his imaging techniques, modes of visual presentation, and contributions to the arts. Humboldt’s intricate approach to perception still resonates today, as his nuanced and unique way of seeing the world was just as important as what he wrote.

Preface

Introduction

PART I: CULTURAL IMPACT

1 Indiana Reads Alexander von Humboldt, by Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo

2 Alexander von Humboldt: Between Enlightenment Vitalism and Romantic Naturphilosophie, by Peter Hanns Reill

3 Alexander von Humboldt and Peter Schlemihl: The Image of the Scientific Explorer in Early Nineteenth-Century German Literature, by Christopher R. Clason

4 The Meeting of Two Alexanders: Causes and Consequences of Humboldt’s and Pushkin’s Mutual Admiration, by Andrew Kroninger

PART II: ON NATURE AND ENVIRONMENT

5 Alexander von Humboldt’s Environmental Holism, by Melanie Swan

6 Alexander von Humboldt’s Lonely Parrot in Views of Nature, by Joseph D. Rockelmann
7 Re-Rivering New Spain: Transatlantic Politics of Knowledge and Water in Alexander von Humboldt, by Niall A. Peach

PART III: HUMBOLDT FROM ART TO SCIENCE AND SCIENCE AS ART

8 Beseelte Natur: Alexander von Humboldt and Data-Driven Paradigm Segues, by Ralph M. Kaufmann

9 Alexander von Humboldt beyond Planet Earth: Exploring the Infinite and Unreachable in Kosmos, by Christina M. Weiler

10 Art and Aesthetics in Alexander von Humboldt: The Subterranean Tree and Other Images, by Beate I. Allert

Biographies of Contributors

Sujets

• 19th Century
• Modern
• Histoire
• Pushkin
• Friedrich Schinkel
• Inca
• Inca civilization
• Weimar Classicism
• Runge
• Naturphilosophie
• Vitalism
• Alexander Pushkin
• Romanticism
• German literature
• E. T. A. Hoffmann
• William Hodges
• Philosophie de la nature
• History
• Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann
• Cajamarca
• Enlightenment
• Cosmos
• Karl Friedrich Schinkel
• Civilisation inca
• Chimborazo
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Alexandre Pouchkine

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612498300
• Langue: English

Extrait

A LEXANDER VON H UMBOLDT
A LEXANDER VON H UMBOLDT
Perceiving the World
Edited by: B EATE I. A LLERT , C HRISTOPHER R. C LASON , N IALL A. P EACH, AND R ICARDO Q UINTANA -V ALLEJO
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2023 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available at the Library of Congress.
978-1-61249-828-7 (hardcover)
978-1-61249-829-4 (paperback)
978-1-61249-830-0 (epub)
978-1-61249-831-7 (epdf)
Cover image: Fish Studies: Flying Fish . 1844. Watercolor by Hildebrandt, Eduard (1818-1869), Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany. Photographed by Volker-H. Schneider/Art Resource, NY
DEDICATION
W E WISH TO DEDICATE THIS COLLECTION OF ESSAYS TO PETER HANNS Reill, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of History and former Director of the Clark Library and the Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies at UCLA, who was scheduled to give a talk on Humboldt in our panel at the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference in St. Louis in April 2020. However, this meeting was not to take place: our wonderful and distinguished colleague Peter had suffered an accident at his home in Miami, Florida, and passed away on August 18, 2019. Like so many friends and scholars all over the world, we were very saddened by this terrible news. Furthermore, the annual ASECS 2020 conference itself was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Peter composed the essay that we have included in this volume. We wish to sincerely thank Prof. Jenna M. Gibbs, Peter s spouse, for her assistance in finalizing it and sending it to us. Some of us remember Peter Reill as the president-elect of ASECS in 2003, when he hosted the international ASECS/ISECS conference at UCLA, as the most imaginative and successful administrator, brilliant speaker, generous host, enthusiastic and amazingly informed art collector, knowledgeable about Enlightenment discourses, history, and comparative literature from the eighteenth century to the present. All of us appreciate the important contributions he made to international Humboldt studies. We four editors of this volume would like to express our sincere gratitude by dedicating it to Peter Hanns Reill.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
PART I: CULTURAL IMPACT
1 Indiana Reads Alexander von Humboldt
BY RICARDO QUINTANA-VALLEJO
2 Alexander von Humboldt: Between Enlightenment Vitalism and Romantic Naturphilosophie
BY PETER HANNS REILL
3 Alexander von Humboldt and Peter Schlemihl: The Image of the Scientific Explorer in Early Nineteenth-Century German Literature
BY CHRISTOPHER R. CLASON
4 The Meeting of Two Alexanders: Causes and Consequences of Humboldt s and Pushkin s Mutual Admiration
BY ANDREW KRONINGER
PART II: ON NATURE AND ENVIRONMENT
5 Alexander von Humboldt s Environmental Holism
BY MELANIE SWAN
6 Alexander von Humboldt s Lonely Parrot in Views of Nature
BY JOSEPH D. ROCKELMANN
7 Re-Rivering New Spain: Transatlantic Politics of Knowledge and Water in Alexander von Humboldt
BY NIALL A. PEACH
PART III: HUMBOLDT FROM ART TO SCIENCE AND SCIENCE AS ART
8 Beseelte Natur: Alexander von Humboldt and Data-Driven Paradigm Segues
BY RALPH M. KAUFMANN
9 Alexander von Humboldt beyond Planet Earth: Exploring the Infinite and Unreachable in Kosmos
BY CHRISTINA M. WEILER
10 Art and Aesthetics in Alexander von Humboldt: The Subterranean Tree and Other Images
BY BEATE I. ALLERT
Biographies of Contributors
Index
PREFACE
I t is immensely enjoyable to witness how individual students you have taught over the years have become equal colleagues, productive in the profession, wonderfully capable scholars and writers, be it in the same or in related disciplines. The intellectual spark that once motivated you to read and write as a professor reflects suddenly in the glow of their eyes and in the writing of such dear, just a bit younger, excellent colleagues. What a great experience! This book is such a celebration, co-authored and co-edited with such contributions. It gathers a fascinating network of collaborations between professors, students, and merely only professors (since the students have grown!) over the past few years. The book is in a sense a tangible meeting of deeply shared interests, and we thank Purdue University Press for being our host.
Alexander von Humboldt triggered a spark among the writers of this volume that began with classes and individual study projects. It spiraled out into elaborate research. The editors and contributors of this book share a great devotion and interest in the work of Alexander von Humboldt since they all found in this person a kindred spirit with a passion for environmentalism, nature, the sciences, and the arts. We are fascinated with the link that Alexander von Humboldt described as something vital and real for everyone who experiences a personal connection with the cosmos. He refers to it as a spiritual dimension and approaches nature as a kind of art to learn from. What he describes as painting(s) of nature must be explored in communication with scholars, scientists, artists, and people of various cultures and languages across the continents. Six of the ten contributors to this volume were once graduate students of one of the contributors, taking classes with Beate Allert at Purdue University. Now they are well-established scholars at various universities. The research community grows and continues.
By tapping into our network at Purdue, an opportunity arose across the College of Liberal Arts with the Mathematics Department. Moreover, it has been a pleasure to interact at numerous conferences devoted to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century studies, international Romanticism (ASECS, GSNA, GSA, ICR, SLSA), and to learn together and from one another over the years. Purdue University has become an ideal center for Humboldt scholarship since it houses an archive with documents collected by John Purdue, founder of Purdue University, on this author and is now, as documented in this book, the location where much fruitful research on this author germinated and from where it developed widely. We are fortunate to those archives that still hold documents on Alexander von Humboldt, who once traveled across the United States, met President Jefferson, and was particularly interested in the cultural wealth of Indigenous Peoples and in the State of Indiana. And we are forever grateful to our students, who are curious and open to learning, and to our colleagues to keep motivating our travels and investigations further. Finally, we are very grateful to Justin Race, director of Purdue University Press, and also to Andrea K. Gapsch, Christopher Bannon, and Katherine M. Purple for their help and support in the publication process; the external readers for their peer reviews, which led to important editing of this book manuscript; and the Editorial Board for unanimously accepting it.
INTRODUCTION
T HE PRESENT-DAY SIGNIFICANCE OF ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859) can scarcely be overestimated. Our engagement with Humboldt is currently most significant in a time when we must acknowledge how we have wrought enormous changes in the atmosphere, on the land, and in the seas, threatening our very existence through climate change around the world. The environment in which we live is fragile and we must learn to be attentive to it, not only through what we can experience personally, but also through what we can learn about it from the sciences, literatures, and the arts. Alexander von Humboldt cultivated creativity, not only in observing and transmitting data, but also in ways of communicating them to his contemporaries.
Alexander von Humboldt can be regarded as a prototype for any modern person of science. From his early years on, he had an enormous curiosity to see the world beyond the culture in which he grew up. With whatever means he could muster, he decided to travel, to observe, and to experiment on nature, which he then did in different parts of the world, journeying overseas from Spain and Tenerife to the Americas, Mexico, Cuba, then back to Germany and Europe, and later overland to Russia and finally back to Berlin. He discovered innovative ways to record and present his key observations, which were often obtained under adverse circumstances. He and his fellow adventurers encountered wild animals, mosquitoes, uncomfortable temperatures, at times torturous travel circumstances and nearly impossible writing conditions, all of which he nonetheless endured and described vividly with great discipline from more than one perspective and not only by words, but often also via images, charts, or drawings.
Humboldt studied nature in a variety of climates, including the tropics, and spent extensive periods of time on various continents carefully observing nature, people, and their relationships to their environments. His autodidactic energy seemed inexhaustible and he took every opportunity to learn. He was proficient in communicating in various languages. Beyond his native German he was eloquent in French and Spanish, publishing books and essays in both. He immersed himself in studying the various languages of the people he encountered on his journeys. He persistently engaged with various disciplines and used his personal contacts and correspondences to obtain and develop new skills, remained active as a writer and painter, and associated with experts of diverse cultural and intellectual backgrounds from around the world while leaving his own legacy in many publications for future scientists and scholars.
This volume presents Alexander von Humboldt as an important figure in early nineteenth-century intellectual and cultural disciplines, conversant in many fields, especially scientific ones. Initially he found inspiration in Georg Forster s (1754-1794) description of islands of the South Sea and in the paintings he saw wh