Complete edition of Alexander von Humboldt’s travel manuscripts at the intersection of cultural and natural sciences

The Academy Project “Travelling Humboldt – Science on the Move” involves the complete edition of the manuscripts of Alexander von Humboldt on the topical complex ‘journeys’. The corpus of the projected edition contains travel journals, diaries, memoranda, publications in the countries and regions travelled, and correspondence.

At its core, the project is focused on editing the manuscripts of both the American and the Russian-Siberian travel diaries. Their edition will take up eleven volumes, which will be published, as a hybrid project, in both print and digital scholarly editions . In addition, the content of extensive materials from the Humboldt papers at the Berlin State Library (Prussian Cultural Heritage) and the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Cracow will be made accessible in separate supplement volumes, each with a specific topical focus.

The long-term research and scholarly edition project is closely working together with the University of Potsdam, the Berlin State Library (Prussian Cultural Heritage), the Technische Universität Berlin and other research institutions in the region of Berlin-Brandenburg. Jointly edited with the University of Potsdam, the open access journal HiN – Humboldt im Netz is published online twice a year.

Applicant: Prof. Dr. Ottmar Ette (Director) and Prof. Dr. Eberhard Knobloch

Start: January 2015 (planned duration: 18 years)
 

The Academy research project “Travelling Humboldt – Science on the Move” is part of the Academies' Programme , a research funding programme co-financed by the German federal government and individual federal states. Coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities , the Programme intends to retrieve and explore our cultural heritage, to make it accessible and highlight its relevance to the present, as well as to preserve it for the future.