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Alexander von Humboldt and the Digital Turn: Challenges in the Editing of Historical Manuscripts

Authors

  • Tobias Kraft Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
No. 5 (2015): Octubre
https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-4862.2015.37444

Abstract

In Latin America, Alexander von Humboldt is a household name. This is mostly due to the grand scientific voyage through the Americas that Humboldt undertook in the years 1799-1804. The 29 volumes of his work Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent (Paris 1805-1838) are the scientific output of these famous travels. The manuscripts we know today as Humboldt’s American Travel Diaries are at the core of this extensive opus. Today, we find ourselves in a crucial moment for the research of Humboldt’s Diaries. Since 2014, there has been a joint research project between the University of Potsdam and the Berlin State Library, focusing on conservation, digitization, research and scholarly analysis of these historic documents. Since 2015, there also is a long-term research project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, dedicated to the scholarly edition of both the Humboldt Travel Diaries and all manuscripts related to his travels that can be found in his literary legacy in the archives of Berlin and Cracow. The scholarly edition will be hybrid, that is, both in print and digital form. Editing such a complex corpus of texts poses a challenge but, at the same time, gives us an opportunity to meet the expectations of the digital era. To conceptualize a hybrid edition means to understand that we are currently in the midst of a media diversification between the printed book and digital scholarly editions. The results of this diversification are still not clearly defined and largely depend on the work of a current generation of scholarly editors.

Keywords:

Alexander von Humboldt, digital humanities, editing philology

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How to Cite
Kraft, T. (2015). Alexander von Humboldt and the Digital Turn: Challenges in the Editing of Historical Manuscripts. Meridional. Revista Chilena De Estudios Latinoamericanos, (5), pp. 59–76. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-4862.2015.37444
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Meridional. Revista Chilena de Estudios Latinoamericanos
Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades
Universidad de Chile
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