the knowledgeable traveler or chuck and bob’s most excellent adventure
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The knowledgeable traveler or Chuck and Bob’s most excellent adventure. HUM 201 Fall 2005 Lecture 10 . Points of departure. Middle World as the space of new relationships and possibilities - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Points of departure• Middle World as the space of new
relationships and possibilities• Radical empiricism helps us understand
how changes in these relationships can lead to new knowledge of our environment
• Two important places in the production of knowledge of the world: field and laboratory
Charles Darwin• 1809-1882• One of five children• Father-in-law (also
uncle) the Wedgwood of Wedgwood Pottery fame
• Landed Gentry• Publishes Origin of
Species 1859
Scientific Places 1• The field (Middle World)
• The space of the tour• Collecting specimens
– Note taking• Observing habitats at the site
– Involves talking to locals
The mission• To continue charting work in South
America• Chronometric readings around the
globe (longitude)
• Captain Fitzroy also had four native Fuegians he educated in Europe
Darwin on the Beagle• Darwin engaged as a naturalist
– Engage in exploration and documentation of specimens– Serve as a companion for Captain Fitzroy– Actually the third person asked
• Ten months after his return Darwin begins his first notebook on the transmutation of the species– Not wholly convinced of transmutation on voyage
• Actually eats important specimens• For finches has to borrow others labeled specimens
• Much of knowledge in this space is description
• 12 shirts1 carpet bag1 pair slippers1 pair of light walking shoes1 microscope (a single lens model by Bancks & Son, London)1 geological compass1 plain compass2 pistols (with spare parts)1 rifle (with spare parts)1 telescope1 pencil case1 geological hammer5 simisometers3 mountain barometers1 clinometer1 camera obscura1 hygrometer (belonged to FitzRoy)1 taxidermy book2-3 Spanish language books14 other books, including Humboldt's "Personal Narrative" and Lyell's "Principles of Geology Vol. 1"1 coin purse (Fanny Owen's gift)1 pin with a lock of Sarah Owen's hair (Fanny's sister)
• "These poor wretches were stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white paint, their skins filthy and greasy, their hair entangled, their voices discordant, their gestures violent and without dignity. Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same world." -- Charles Darwin
• A watercolor of a native from the Tierra del Fuego, from around the time that Charles Darwin was on his Voyage of the Beagle (1830s).
Knowledge as description• Observation comes from the fabric
of experience– Strong bodily presence– Mixes scientific and social, natural
and civil– Empire, race, other, scientific
knowledge always interrelated
Scientific Places 2• The museum
– Specimens sorted– Compared to to other specimens– Knowledge is created by organizing
observations in the field• Creating the map from the tour
– Stories created by using spatial practices to navigate between these two places
Knowledge through artifacts
• National Museum• Darwin needs to
hear that certain samples not found on mainland
Radical Empiricism• Knowledge is of elements in relation.• Create new knowledge by changing
the relationship of the elements to the self or to each other.
• In the museum one can easily compare samples from different locations (transform the tour into the map)