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Weniger schlechte Bilder. Walfängerwissen in Naturgeschichte, Ozeanographie und Literatur im 19. Jahrhundert
Author(s) -
Lüttge Felix
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
berichte zur wissenschaftsgeschichte
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1522-2365
pISSN - 0170-6233
DOI - 10.1002/bewi.201601782
Subject(s) - whaling , inscribed figure , whale , art history , history , natural (archaeology) , representation (politics) , seascape , object (grammar) , art , archaeology , philosophy , ecology , law , political science , linguistics , geometry , mathematics , biology , politics , habitat
Less Erroneous Pictures. Whalers’ Knowledge in Nineteenth‐Century Natural History, Oceanography, and Literature . This paper uses the iconoclasm of Herman Melville's Moby‐Dick as a point of departure to examine the problem of representing whales pictorially. Focussing on the use of images in cetological works and whaling logbooks, the paper investigates how the whalers’ knowledge, which served the hunting, killing, and economic exploitation of whales, came to be inscribed in the antithetical work of natural historians who were increasingly interested in living organisms. This paper argues that Melville's juxtaposition of whalers’ and naturalists’ knowledge runs parallel with a dichotomy, along which natural histories, travelogues, and thematic maps of oceanography constitute the whale as an object of knowledge. It concludes by suggesting that, at the same time, this dichotomy is repeatedly undermined for the sake of the whale's representation.