Pain, disease, and metaphors
Alexander von Humboldt and the physiology of travel
Abstract
Alexander von Humboldt’s account of his American expedition of 1799-1804 (Relation historique, 1814-1831) discusses the physiology of the colonial encounter by describing the traveller’s body as it comes into contact with tropical countries and non-European cultures. (1) The European body suffers pain, fatigue, and illnesses. The text suggests, but avoids, a heroic narrative. The traveller’s body changes after experiments and acclimatisation. (2) The American continent is also imagined as a body. At first glance, it appears as a ground for exploitation, while the text stages it metaphorically as a subject of emancipation. (3) The bodies of the indigenous appear exotic at first. Yet the differences between European and American bodies disappear in intercultural performances and theoretical considerations on evolutionary aesthetics. Over the course of his journey, Humboldt’s poetics of the colonial body are dynamic, challenged, and subverted.
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