Civic and Economic Zoology in Nineteenth-Century Germany

The "Living Communities" of Karl Mobius

Bibliographic Data

ID3559377
AuthorsLynn K Nyhart (corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume89
Issue4
Pages605-630
Publication date1998-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/384157
OpenAlexW2066373278
LanguageEN
Citations received8

In an effort to broaden our analytical approach to nineteenth-century German science, this essay examines the intellectual and social worlds of the Kiel zoologist Karl Mobius from the late 1850s to the late 1870s. I first analyze Mobius's famous concept of the "bioconose" or biotic community, which appeared in an 1877 monograph on oyster-culture. Although this book seems to exemplify the conjunction between state and university that has dominated the historiography of German science, in fact, as I go on to argue, the conceptual framework it came from was largely developed earlier, when he worked as a schoolteacher and natural history activist in Hamburg. An analysis of Mobius's writings and activities during his fifteen years in Hamburg (1853-1868) shows that elements crucial to his community concept grew out of his varied activities in the civic setting. This "civic zoology," I argue, is a crucial site for investigating both the development of biogeographical and ecological thinking in the later nineteenth century and the broader culture of science among the Burgertum of Wilhelmine Germany

Archaeology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · German · Historiography · History of science · Political science · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Classics · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy

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