Science, race, visual culture, and public communication of the British expedition HMS Challenger (1872–1876)

• In Event: Environment, Scientific Racism, and Public Communication (C19–20th)

Abstract

Stephanie Hood will present her research on the visual culture practices of the British oceanographic expedition HMS Challenger (1872–1876). Photographs from the voyage were used to present the scientific findings of the Challenger to a public audience, to communicate the expedition as a colonial endeavor, and to uphold scientific racism in academic books, newspapers, and public exhibitions. Through these sources we therefore reveal relationships between exploration and colonialism, scientific racism, and public communication in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Author

• Stephanie Lauren Hood, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science