Prussian scientist and explore Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was the most famous German naturalists of his age, a man who left his mark on geography, botany, and anthropology. An exhaustive chronicler of his world travels, von Humboldt also challenged conventional views of utilitarian science and the emerging belief in Europe that the races of the world were organized hierarchically, and that societies traveled through a single path of economic development. Between 1799 and 1804, he traveled widely through Spanish Empire’s territories in the western hemisphere and finally made a celebrated visit to the United States at a critical moment in the expansion of its empire. Dr. Sandra Rebok, a German-born authority on the history of science, will give a lecture to mark von Humboldt’s 250th anniversary, and will address his contributions to both Enlightenment science, and the imperial rivalries of Spain and the United States.

Speaker biography
Dr. Sandra Rebok is an independent researcher, currently based in Spain and working on the Humboldt 2019 commemoration for the Institute for Foreign Affairs in Stuttgart, Germany. Dr. Rebok holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Heidelberg and has been a Marie Curie Fellow, and has held additional Fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution and the International Center for Jefferson Studies. She is the author of, among others, Humboldt and Jefferson: A Transatlantic Friendship of the Enlightenment (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014), and Wahrnehmung Humboldts in Lateinamerika: Chance und Herausforderungen einer Themensaison (Stuttgart: ifa-Edition Kultur und Außenpolitik, 2019).