Dissertation Research: Exploring the Oceanic Frontier: American Naturalists as Amateur Conservationists

这篇论文的研究项目是对科学史和环境史的贡献，因为它试图分析海洋探索和保护之间的辩证关系。它将考察20世纪一些受欢迎的海洋博物学家的历史，重点放在他们对海洋边疆的原址探索以及随后在流行文化中流传的探索叙事。在19世纪的美国，探险是一种合法的科学实践；它与自然历史的工作息息相关，自然历史的主要目标是绘制和编目美国的风景。但在20世纪的大学里，探索在很大程度上被以实验室为基础的科学所取代，通常是在慈善赞助的支持下。在很大程度上，20世纪美国科学史是关于实验室的主导地位，技术的惊人爆炸，以及科学的日益庞大。这篇论文的研究项目集中在少数几位博物学家身上，他们将注意力集中在一个几乎没有被探索的地区-海洋。罗伊·查普曼·安德鲁斯、罗伯特·库什曼·墨菲、威廉·毕比、雷切尔·卡森、尤金妮·克拉克、托尔·海尔达尔和雅克·库斯托都是博物学家，但也构建了海洋的流行表现形式。他们探索工作的副产品之一是他们对保护措施的支持。

This dissertation research project is a contribution to both the history of science and environmental history in that it seeks to analyze the dialectic between ocean exploration and conservation. It will examine the history of a number of popular oceanic naturalists in the twentieth-century by focusing on their in situ exploration of the oceanic frontier and the consequent narratives of exploration that circulated in popular culture. Exploration was a legitimate scientific practice in nineteenth-century America; it was bound up with the work of natural history whose primary goal was to map and catalogue the American landscape. But in twentieth-century universities, exploration was largely displaced by laboratory-based science, often under the aegis of philanthropic patronage. For the most part, the history of twentieth-century American science is about the dominance of the lab, the staggering explosion of technology, and the increasing bigness of science. This dissertation research project focuses on a handful of naturalists who directed their attention to a barely explored region- the ocean. Roy Chapman Andrews, Robert Cushman Murphy, William Beebe, Rachel Carson, Eugenie Clark, Thor Heyerdahl, and Jacques Cousteau were all naturalists, but also constructed popular representations of the ocean. One of the spin-offs of their exploratory efforts was their support for conservation measures.