Travel, Trade, and Empire: Scientific Expeditions and the Politics of "Discovery"

Catalog description

What does, and did, it mean to “discover” objects, environments, and peoples, to transport them across oceans, to (re)name them, and to display them in the ongoing (perhaps never ending) “age of empire?” Following the global history of scientific expeditions from premodern oceanic voyages to twentieth century trips to the Arctic and more recent corporatized trips to space, this class will contextualize the racial, gendered, sexualized, bodily, and class-based politics involved in charting, mapping, collecting, and displaying the world (and worlds beyond). Surveying hundreds of years of exploration and colonialism into the present, we will analyze the production of geographical knowledge, the territorialization and exploitation of landscapes, classificatory regimes enacted on scientific “specimens” and peoples, emerging tropes of the solitary masculine explorer, new genres of writing about and visualizing the world, and the prevailing legacies of violence on indigenous communities and environments on earth and beyond. This class will include frank discussions about the history of capitalism, systemic inequality, and environmental destruction and will include visits to museums, gardens, and collections around the city.