Alexander von Humboldt - A German Thinker Ahead of His Time
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- Dr. Frank Holl is answering questions of the audience
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The German Consulate General, the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the new German House of Science, Research and Innovation were proud to present a special event in the German House New York on November 5th 2009: Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the death of the explorer, scientist and humanist Alexander von Humboldt, Dr. Frank Holl, a noted scholar on Humboldt, held an illustrated lecture entitled, “Humboldt’s Life, Works and the Creation of Global Thinking.”
In their greetings, the Deputy Consul General Dr. Stephan Grabherr and the Director of the German Research Foundation Dr. Marion Müller were delighted to announce the new German House of Science, Research and Innovation, which will officially be opened soon. Under the leadership of the German Academic Exchange Service and the German Research Foundation and in close cooperation with the Consulate General, the new House of Science aims to foster a flourishing and reliable science network between Germany and the United States. As a first token to walk the talk and to enhance this new science community of partners, Mr. Grabherr also presented a roundtrip-ticket to Germany, which the new House of Science might use to promote a personal transatlantic exchange for a young student or scientist.
In his lecture, Dr. Holl showed how current the thinking and research of this famous cosmopolite still are today: “A man ahead of his time, Alexander von Humboldt thought in terms of ecology, transdisciplinarity, global communication and human rights,” Dr. Holl said. The subjects of the presentation ranged from historical and recent investigations in biodiversity, vulcanology and climatology to social and political themes, such as the clearing of tropical rain forests and the advantages and disadvantages of modern globalization.
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- Deputy Consul General Dr. Stephan Grabherr with Dr. Marion Müller (German Research Foundation), Dr. Frank Holl, Cathleen S. Fisher (American Friends of the Humboldt Foundation) and Sebastian Fohrbeck (German Academic Exchange Service)
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Two aspects of Humboldt’s life and work were especially emphasized by Dr. Holl. First, he pointed out that Humboldt was one of the very first globalists. Proceeding from the idea of the “unity of the human race,” he resolutely opposed the “disagreeable assumption of higher and lower races.” Humboldt urged his readers, “to remove the barriers that prejudices and one-sided views of all kinds have erected with such hostility between human beings, and to treat the entire human race, regardless of religion, nation and color, as one great single race, as an entity striving to attain a purpose, the development of its innermost forces.” Second, Humboldt was one of the precursors of the modern concept of ecology. He believed, explained Dr. Holl, that all things interacted with each other and that man’s incursions into existing ecosystems, such as South America’s rain forests, would lead to a disruption of nature. “Everything is interaction,” Humboldt noted – a sentence which is very up-to-date.
