Simone Schroder is the winner of this year’s competition to give the
Sylvia Naish Lecture.
Simone, a research student at the University of Bath, will speak on ‘
Imagining Global Connectedness in Alexander von Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur’.
During his 1799-1804 tropical and subtropical South American journey, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt explored mountain peaks, pondered the origins of the river Orinoco, listened to nocturnal animals
in primeval forests, and experienced awe in the face of the steppes and deserts of Venezuela. Wherever he went he recorded his impressions of the landscape, collected items, and measured and mapped foreign nature. Some of his journal entries were later turned
into a long scientific report, while others enhanced Ansichten der Natur ('Views/Aspects of Nature', 1808) – a popularizing essay collection that addressed the general public.
This paper seeks to bring together a genre perspective with an ecocritical reading of Humboldt’s essays. Drawing on Ursula Heise’s Sense of Place and Sense of Planet (OUP, 2008), it will be argued that the
aesthetics of the literary essay are pivotal to Humboldt’s ecological vision of an interconnected globe. While Heise focuses on Modernist novelistic writing, Schroder demonstrates the aesthetic potential of the essay genre, the interdiscursive function of which
allows Humboldt to combine encyclopaedic facts with lively nature descriptions, micro-narratives and thought patterns that reflect a global vision.
The adjudicating panel commented that this year's decision was one of the hardest they had taken in years, as the quality of the proposals sent in was exceptionally impressive. Entries reflected the health, the
increasing breadth of German studies and the interconnectedness of the subject with other, neighbouring areas of study.
The Sylvia Naish Lecture will be given at 6 pm on Thursday, 7 April 2016, in Room 243, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. All welcome to attend.
Jane Lewin
IMLR Trusts Administrator/Events Manager
Institute of Modern Languages Research
University of London School of Advanced Study
Room 239, Senate House
Malet Street, GB- London WC1E 7HU
Telephone 0044 (0)20 7862 8966
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