Toucan play: the inception and evolution of the Toucan in the European cultural-biological imagination in the early modern period.

欧洲人对美洲的“发现”构成了近代早期最基本的发展之一。在这一时期，许多人经历了“信息过载”(布莱尔)，这极大地加剧了这一时期，以前不为人知的事实、图像和与“新大陆”的人物、风景、动植物有关的故事突然变得可供欧洲人沉思。在一系列新发现的令探险者着迷的动物物种中，从神秘到古怪，有一种特别的生物吸引了欧洲人的想象力，并激发了许多不同的代表：巨嘴鸟。从皮埃尔·贝隆(Pierre Belon)和康拉德·詹瑟(Conrad Genser)的自然历史纲要，到安德烈·塞维特(AndréThevet)的宇宙旅行叙事，最后是低地国家(鲁本斯、布鲁盖尔)的虔诚绘画，巨嘴鸟对当代思想产生了广泛的流派和媒体影响。该项目旨在揭示这种特殊物种的过渡性和变革性叙事，并将通过以下研究问题来实现这一点：在16世纪，法国和其他地区的文化媒体如何比较和发展巨嘴鸟的表现？巨嘴鸟如何反映和洞察不同社交圈和文化中的文本、物体和信息在早期现代时期的传递？巨嘴鸟是如何被欧洲的文化-生物想象力恢复过来的？这个项目跨越了语言、时间段和表达方式，提供了以跨学科的方式综合不同批评观点的机会。从阿特金森和奇纳德到最近的(后)新历史主义者关于美洲的著作，认知再校准的模式在法国学术界已经是一个经常讨论的话题。它既为共存的关键地区提供信息，也旨在为其做出贡献。它试图为围绕新大陆物品集合和自然历史知识的英美学术、神童现象和西方展示文化的雏形带来新的洞察力。同样，它寻求促进与开创性的人类学和神学法语学术的对话，这些学术是在米歇尔·德·瑟托的后结构主义思想之后出现的。最重要的是，它的目标是采用生态批判性和动物研究描绘的批判性方法，但尚未完全探索。最初的作品(波勒、福吉和麦肯齐)展示了动物在田野工作实践、道德问题以及跨越国界的物品和知识交流中的重要性，但到目前为止，人们在很大程度上限制了对东半球生物的关注。对巨嘴鸟的研究通过考察一种新的动物目带来了新的见解，并希望为未来可能对其他美洲物种进行文化生物学研究奠定基础。综合方法有可能跨越文学、人类学、历史学和神学等研究的边界，作为最好地理解叙述本身支离破碎和过渡的一种手段，以及一种不局限于某种形式的主题。巨嘴鸟是一种象征性的形象，是它所代表的美洲动物的象征，是大发现时期在大西洋上循环的实物的象征，更重要的是，它是早期现代欧洲跨越国界和社交圈传播的知识形式的象征。

The European 'discovery' of the Americas constitutes one of the most fundamental developments in the early modern period. Contributing significantly to the 'information overload' (Blair) experienced by many in the period, the previously unknown facts, images, and stories pertaining to people, landscapes, flora and fauna of the 'New World' suddenly became available for European contemplation. Amongst the array of newly encountered animal species that fascinated explorers, ranging from the uncanny to the outlandish, one particular creature captivated the European imagination and inspired a multitude of varying representations: the toucan. From the natural-historical compendia of Pierre Belon and Conrad Genser, to the cosmographical travel narratives of André Thevet, and eventually the devotional painting of the Low Countries (Rubens, Brueghel), the toucan had an effect on contemporary thought across a broad gamut of genres and media. This project intends to bring the transitional and transformational narrative of this peculiar species to light, and will do so by pursuing research questions such as: how do representations of the toucan compare and develop across cultural media both in France and beyond in the sixteenth century? How does the toucan reflect, and provide insight into, the transference of text, objects and information in different social circles and cultures in the early modern period? How does the toucan become recuperated by the European cultural-biological imagination? Traversing languages, time periods and means of expression, this project provides the opportunity to synthesise divergent critical perspectives in cross-disciplinary fashion. Modes of epistemic recalibration is a subject already much discussed in French scholarship from Atkinson and Chinard, through to more recent '(post-)new-historicist' work on the Americas. It is both informed by, and aims to contribute to, co-existing critical territories. It seeks to bring a fresh insight into the Anglo-American scholarship surrounding the assemblage of objects and knowledge of natural history in the New World, to the phenomenon of the Wunderkammer and the rudiments of Western exhibitionary culture. Similarly, it seeks to foster dialogues with the path-breaking anthropological and theological francophone scholarship that arose subsequent to the post-structuralist thought of Michel de Certeau. Most significantly, it aims to adopt the critical approach delineated by eco-critical and animal studies but as yet not fully explored. Initial works (Boehrer, Fudge and MacKenzie) have demonstrated the importance of animals in fieldwork practices, questions of morality and the exchange of objects and knowledge across borders, yet have hitherto largely delimited attention to old world creatures. The study of the toucan brings a fresh insight by examining a new order of animal and hopes to lay a foundation upon which future cultural-biological studies of other American species might be carried out. A composite approach, which has the potential to traverse the borders of literary, anthropological, historical and theological research such as this, has been adopted as a means of best understanding a narrative which itself is fragmentary and transitional, and a subject matter which is not restricted to a certain format. The toucan constitutes a symbolic figure, of the American animals which it can be seen to represent, of the physical objects circulating the Atlantic at the time of the Great Discoveries, and, crucially, of the forms of knowledge being conveyed across borders and social circles in early modern Europe.