Thesis ID: CBB001562000

Writing the Andes, Reading the Amazon: Voyages of Exploration and the Itineraries of Scientific Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century (2004)

unapi

Safier, Neil Franklin (Author)


Johns Hopkins University
Bell, David A.
Pagden, Anthony R.


Publication Date: 2004
Edition Details: Advisor: Bell, David A.; Pagden, Anthony R.
Physical Details: 476 pp.
Language: English

This dissertation examines five interrelated episodes in the European exploration, representation, and intellectual appropriation of South America in the eighteenth century. The focus is the Franco-Hispanic Expedition to Quito (1735--1744), a mission sponsored by the French Academy of Sciences and underwritten by the Bourbon kings of France and Spain to resolve the vexing question of the true shape of the Earth. Each of the five chapters, focusing on a particular text, map, or physical edifice that resulted from the expedition, highlights and analyzes a specific editorial activity in the process of recording and commemorating transatlantic scientific exploration. Using monumental architecture, engravings, maps, treatises, and histories, the participants made conscious and elaborate attempts to lay claim to the results of their endeavors, often at the expense of other individuals---including South American Creoles, indigenous groups, and Jesuits---who had sought to delimit their own proprietary rights in this process. In Europe, compilers, editors, and publishers reconfigured this newly-culled knowledge from the New World as part of a broad editorial movement to collect, codify, and abridge information brought in from overseas. Within this burgeoning public sphere where natural philosophy fused with print culture, conflicts and controversies erupted over who had the right to profit from the experimental results of scientific activities conducted in non-European territory. In polite conversation and in print, in graphic and textual form, these conflicts presented South America as a theater of scientific controversy, with philosophical travelers acting as protagonists, European presses as typographical floodlights, and the reading public as an eager audience to the ars dramatis of erudite dispute. Ultimately, mountains and rivers along the equatorial line---from the Andes to the Amazon---became tablets and platforms for the triumphal presentation of European scientific dominion, malleable surfaces upon which science and publicity merged together into a hybrid script.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 64 (2004): 3809. UMI order no. 3107572.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001562000/

Similar Citations

Book James Uden; (2022)
Worlds of Knowledge in Women’s Travel Writing (/isis/citation/CBB070453785/)

Book Ferreiro, Larrie D.; (2011)
Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World (/isis/citation/CBB001250874/)

Book Gascoigne, John; (2014)
Encountering the Pacific in the Age of Enlightenment (/isis/citation/CBB001421627/)

Article Williams, Glyn; (2013)
Scurvy on the Pacific Voyages in the Age of Cook (/isis/citation/CBB001200828/)

Article Daniel Hershenzon; (2014)
Traveling Libraries: The Arabic Manuscripts of Muley Zidan and the Escorial Library (/isis/citation/CBB253244008/)

Article Salas Álvarez, Jesús de la Ascensión; (2008)
La difusión de la arqueología y del patrimonio arqueológico de Andalucía a través de la literatura ilustrada de viajes (/isis/citation/CBB001022557/)

Book Tova Arredondo, Antonio de; Porrua, Enrique J.; (2001)
Diary of Antonio de Tova on the Malaspina Expedition (1789-1794) (/isis/citation/CBB000101750/)

Chapter Valles, Inmaculada Tamarit; (2012)
Translation, Rewriting, Adaptation: The Itineraire descriptif de l'Espagne by Alexandre de Laborde (/isis/citation/CBB001202017/)

Chapter Camino, Mercedes Maroto; (2011)
Ceremonial Encounters: Spanish Perceptions of the South Pacific, 1567--1794 (/isis/citation/CBB001201511/)

Thesis MacMillan, Kurt Thomas; (2013)
Hormonal Bodies: Sex, Race, and Constitutional Medicine in the Iberian-American World, 1900--1950 (/isis/citation/CBB001560681/)

Book Starbuck, Nicole; (2013)
Baudin, Napoleon and the Exploration of Australia (/isis/citation/CBB001201503/)

Book Day, David; (2013)
Antarctica: A Biography (/isis/citation/CBB001421625/)

Book Duyker, Edward; (2003)
Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755-1834) (/isis/citation/CBB000400039/)

Authors & Contributors
Bleichmar, Daniela
Hershenzon, Daniel
James Uden
Williams, Glyndwr
Viloria, Ángel L.
Valles, Inmaculada Tamarit
Concepts
Travel; exploration
Scientific expeditions
Sea travel
Natural history
Transmission of texts
Botany
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
17th century
Enlightenment
20th century
Early modern
Places
Spain
France
South America
Pacific Ocean
Americas
Central America
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment