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04.-06.12.2019, Conference: „Alexander von Humboldt: Circulation of State Knowledge in Europe and Latin America“, Berlin
Mittwoch, 4. Dezember 2019 @ 09:00–Freitag, 6. Dezember 2019 @ 17:00
Conference, Dec 4-6, 2019, Berlin
Alexander von Humboldt: Circulation of State Knowledge in Europe and Latin America
Alexander von Humboldt’s journey through the American societies is often understood as the starting point of a new era in the transatlantic knowledge economies. Against this unidimensional perspective, this conference will embed the figure of von Humboldt within long-term developments that shaped institutions and scientific exchange between Europe and Latin America since the 18th century. It will discuss the circulation of experts and objects in the times of state reform in the different Empires, the role of state expertise and the newly founded scientific institutions for the economic development, the influence of international political shifts and of the Latin American independence. The conference presents the manifold forms of knowledge circulation, the different contexts of evolution and, finally, the entanglements of different fields of knowledge between Europe and Latin America in the 18th and 19th century.
The speakers are: Jorge Cañizares Esguerra (Austin), Nuria Valverde Pérez (Cuajimalpa), Gabe Paquette (Eugene, Oregon), José Enrique Covarrubias (Mexico City), Carlos Rodrigo Sanhueza Cerda (Santiago de Chile), Glenn Penny (Iowa City), Lina M. del Castillo (Austin), Darina Martykánová (Madrid), Lothar Schilling (Augsburg), Jakob Vogel (Berlin), Sandra Carreras (Berlin), Pierre Nobi (Paris), Alexander van Wickeren (Köln), Fabricio Prado (Williamsburg), Clément Thibaud (Paris), Ulrich Päßler (Berlin), Helge Wendt (Berlin).
Program
Convenors:
Helge Wendt, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Jakob Vogel, Centre Marc Bloch
Barbara Göbel, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – PK
December 4, 2019
Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – PK, Potsdamer Str. 37, 10785 Berlin
19:00 Welcome
Barbara Göbel, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – PK, Berlin
Keynote Lecture:
On Epistemological Colonialism: from Humboldt to the Present (and Back Again)
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas, Austin
December 5, 2019
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, 10117 Berlin
09:00 Registration
09:30 Introduction
Introduction to the Conference
Jakob Vogel, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
Helge Wendt, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
State Reform by Circulating Knowledge. Remarks on an Enlightened Concept and its Long-Term Effects
Lothar Schilling, University of Augsburg
10:30 Coffee Break
11:00 PANEL 1: State Experts and the Economic Development
Chair: Fidel José Tavárez Simon, Freie Universität Berlin
In Pursuit of (Public) Goods: Civil Servants, Knowledge and the Alternative Futures of the Spanish Empire
Nuria Valverde Pérez, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Cuajimalpa
Linkages between Political Economy and Statecraft in the Spanish and Luso-Brazilian Worlds (Jovellanos, Malaspina, Souza Coutinho and Silva Lisbon)
Gabe Paquette, University of Oregon, Eugene
State Knowledge in the Times of Economic Liberalism. Alexander von Humboldt, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and the „Latin American Mining Boom“ of the 1820s and 1830s
Jakob Vogel, Sciences Po, Paris/Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
12:30 Lunch Break
14:00 PANEL 2a: Creating Knowledge for the Independent Nation States
Chair: Birgit Aschmann, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Networks of Knowledge and Revolution in Rio de la Plata and Brazil: the Emergence of the Banda Oriental (1777–1822)
Fabrício Prado, William and Mary, Williamsburg
El nacimiento de las ciencias modernas en Cuba. El efecto Humboldt
Eduardo Torres-Cuevas, Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí, Havana
15:00 Coffee Break
15:30 PANEL 2b: Creating Knowledge for the Independent Nation States
Humboldt and the Ilustrados of New Granada: From Natural Laws to Constitutional Invention
Clément Thibaud, EHESS, Paris
Broken Polity, Forgotten Science: Humboldt’s Scientific Network in the Shaping and Fragmenting of the Gran Colombian Republic, 1820–1830
Lina M. del Castillo, University of Texas, Austin
Harnessing Humboldt: German Science and State-Building in Central America in the Second Half of the 19th Century
Glenn Penny, University of Iowa, Iowa-City
17:00 End
December 6, 2019
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstr. 22, 14195 Berlin
09:30 PANEL 3: The Atlantic World as a Crossroad of Experts
Chair: Sebastian Jobs, Freie Universität Berlin
Rediscovering America, Rediscovering Yellow Fever. Alexander von Humboldt’s Study of the Vómito Negro of Veracruz in the Context of the Circulation of Medical and State Knowledge in the Atlantic World (1790s–1820s)
Pierre Nobi, Sciences Po, Paris
From the Spanish to the Napoleonic Empire? Alexander von Humboldt, Agricultural Enlightenment and Tobacco Cultivation around 1800
Alexander van Wickeren, Universität zu Köln
Humboldt’s Knowledge about Land and People in the North-West Regions of New Spain
José Enrique Covarubias, Universidad Naciona Autónoma de México, Mexico City
11:00 Coffee Break
11:30 PANEL 4: Mobilizing New Resources for the Public Good
Chair: Lucía Lewowicz, Universidad de la República Oriental de Uruguay, Montevideo
Humboldt and the 19th-century American Energy Crisis
Helge Wendt, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
The Invisible Hand of Nature? Humboldt’s Concept of Dynamic Equilibrium between Natural Research, Universal History and Political Economy
Ulrich Päßler, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin
12:30 Lunch Break
14:00 PANEL 5: Networks of Persons and Objects between Europe and Latin America
Chair: Peter Birle, IAI – PK, Berlin
Transatlantic Careers: Foreign Engineers in Latin America, Latin American Engineers all around the World
Darina Martykánová, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
On Humboldt’s Path? German-speaking Experts in South America
Sandra Carreras, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – PK, Berlin
A Cosmos under Construction. Alexander von Humboldt and the Mobility of Data and Instruments in the Global Circulation of Knowledge
Carlos Rodrigo Sanhueza Cerda, Universidad de Chile
15:30 Coffee Break
16:00 Final Discussion
Conference venue
Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – PK, Potsdamer Straße 37, 10785 Berlin
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, 10117 Berlin
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin
Contact and Information
Helge Wendt, MPIWG, E-Mail: hwendt@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Diana von Römer, IAI-PK, E-Mail: roemer@iai.spk-berlin.de
Registration
- Conference registration: anmeldung@cmb.hu-berlin.de,
- Keynote Lecture registration:registration@iai.spk-berlin.de.
Program Flyer (PDF)
You can view and download the program flyer here.
