Botanical collection in Europe and Australia

Written by cultural studies researcher Heike Hartmann, this chapter of the virtual exhibition “Ludwig Leichhardt: A German Explorer’s Letters Home from Australia” presents Dr. Leichhardt’s collecting of botanical specimens.

Ludwig Leichhardt: A German Explorer’s Letters Home from Australia

Seventeen letters sent by Ludwig Leichhardt from 1842–48 vividly depict his stay in Australia. In this exhibition curated by historian Heike Hartmann, we are introducing a brand new English translation of the letters and a timeline tool with which to view those, this virtual exhibition documents Leichhardt’s adventurous stay in Australia and opens up new perspectives for the environmental history of the land, Europeans’ engagement with its indigenous population, and international scientific networks at the time.

Heike Hartmann

About the author

Hartmann, Heike

Deutsches Historisches Museum, Germany

Heike Hartmann is a museum curator and researcher in the field of cultural studies with a focus on visual culture, postcolonial criticism, and the transcultural history of science and archives. She was a member of the ATN-DAAD research project “Leichhardt’s Legacies: Locating the Disappeared,” curator of the exhibition “‘Gut möglich, dass meine Knochen für immer auf den Ebenen dieser Kolonie bleichen werden’: Der Australienforscher Ludwig Leichhardt” (Marstall Schloss Branitz, Cottbus, 2013), and editor of the accompanying volume Ludwig Leichhardt: Spuren eines Verschollenen.

Heike Hartmann is currently curating an exhibition on German colonialism at Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. She has contributed to a number of exhibitions, including Bilder verkehren: Postkarten in der visuellen Kultur des deutschen Kolonialismus (2005) and Karl May—Imaginary Journeys (2007), and she is coeditor of the volume Menschen—Orte—Zeiten: Fotografie am Deutschen Historischen Museum (2009).

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Should Trees Have Standing? Law, Morality, and the Environment

Should Trees Have Standing? continues to serve as the definitive statement as to why trees, oceans, animals, and the environment as a whole should be bestowed with legal rights.

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Manoomin: The Taming of Wild Rice in the Great Lakes Region

by Kaitlin Stack Whitney

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Arcadia, 2015, no. 2

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"Roundup Ready": The First Widely Used Genetically Modified Crop

The multinational, agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto developed the first widely used genetically modified crop with the introduction of the “Roundup Ready” soybean.

Tags:

Themes:

Environmental Knowledge

Landscape Transformation

Regions:

United States

The Wardian Case – A Mobile Greenhouse

The Wardian Case, an airtight glass case, revolutionized the movement of plants around the globe during the 19th century, by greatly increasing the chances of their survival.

Tags:

Themes:

Environmental Movements

Landscape Transformation

"Nature (and Politics)"

This paper addresses the leitmotif of Alan Holland’s work, which is argued here to be a defence of the existence and worth of nonhuman nature.

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"Thinking from Within the Calyx of Nature"

In this essay, Freya Mathews argues that the moral point of view involves a feeling for the inner reality of others and explains the consequences of this idea for other-than-human life forms and systems.

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“Thinking through Botanic Gardens”

This essay discusses ways of thinking about botanic gardens that pay close attention to their particularity as designed spaces, dependent on technique, that nonetheless purport to present (and preserve) natural entities (plants).

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Bio-invasions, Biodiversity, and Biocultural Diversity: Some Problems with These Concepts for Historians

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Perspectives Issue 2014/1

This article looks at whether biocultural diversity be developed as a more totalising idea that is useful for historians.

Thneeds Reseeds: Figures of Biocultural Hope in the Anthropocene

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Perspectives Issue 2012/9

Thneeds Reseeds, a sculptural artwork by Deanna Pindell, is a biotactical intervention aimed at exposing and derailing dominant regimes for managing sylvan life. The “thneeds” are fuzzy softball-sized sculptures made from old sweaters. Left in the forest, these sculptures constitute brightly-colored habitats for forest plants and animals.