"The Life & Legacy of Alexander von Humboldt" at the German American Heritage Center -- April 24.
Sunday, April 24, 4 p.m.
German American Heritage Center, 712 West Second Street, Davenport IA
A noted and frequently controversial German figure from the 18th and 19th centuries will be the subject of the German American Heritage Center's fascinating April 24 program The Life & Legacy of Alexander von Humboldt, with presenter Dr. Sandra Rebok offering unique insight into the Berlin native whose quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography.
A German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science born in 1769, Alexander von Humboldt was the younger brother of the Prussian minister Wilhelm von Humboldt, and his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt traveled extensively in the Americas, exploring and describing them for the first time from a modern Western scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in several volumes over 21 years, and Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean – South America and Africa, in particular – were once joined. In addition, Humboldt resurrected the use of the word "cosmos" from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity that introduced concepts of ecology leading to ideas of environmentalism. In 1800, and again in 1831, Humboldt described scientifically, on the basis of observations generated during his travels, local impacts of development causing human-induced climate change.
More than 150 years after his passing, Humboldt is still well-remembered on both sides of the Atlantic, and his wide-ranging work, ideas, and scientific methods continue to be influential to this day. However, while some praise him as father of the environmentalism, others question his contribution to the sciences, and while some take him as colonial explorer at the service of the Spanish empire, others lionize him as ideological leader of the Independence movement in Spanish America. These different narratives, or “inventions of Humboldt," often reveal more about our own interests than about the historic figure, and in her April 24 program, Dr. Sandra Rebok will evaluate and contextualize Humboldt’s life and legacy, asking critical questions in the process. Who was this famous scientific explorer? What were his key achievements? How do they differ from other scholars’ of his time? And what can we still learn from him while facing the challenges of our world today?
Rebok’s research focuses on exploration voyages, intellectual networks, and transnational collaborations during the 19th century. With more than 20 years of experience in her subject's scholarship, she is the author of several books on Humboldt and the editor of three of his works in Spanish. Her 2014 book Jefferson & Humboldt examines the man's intellectual exchange with Thomas Jefferson, while Rebok's new monograph Humboldt’s Empire of Knowledge analyzes Humboldt’s position between the Spanish Empire in decline and the expanding United States. At present, Rebok is also a Visiting Scholar at the University of California in San Diego.
The Life & Legacy of Alexander von Humboldt will be presented in person at the German American Heritage Center on April 24 at 2 p.m., participation is $10 for members and $15 for non-members, and refreshments including beer and wine will be served and are included in the admission price. For more information and to register, call (563)322-9944 and visit GAHC.org.
