Exploration: From Captain Cook to the Astronauts

This course traces the history of Western exploration of the Americas, Australasia, Africa, Antarctica and beyond from the 18th to the 20th centuries. It will examine the ways in which Western travellers and explorers ventured out into the world beyond Europe, and how they sought to make sense of the environments and peoples they encountered. In this course we will study the diverse commercial, scientific, national, and personal motives explorers had for venturing out into uncharted parts of the world, including the search for imagined El Dorados as well as other fabled lands such as Terra Australis Incognita and Timbuktu. Themes covered in this course include: the interconnections between exploration and natural history including how 'specimens' collected by explorers influenced western scientific knowledge and taxonomy; the influence of technology and media on facilitating exploration and producing ever expanding audiences; and a critical evaluation of the idea of the 'lone explorer' by tracing how these travellers were self-fashioned, depicted in popular culture, and highlighting their often unacknowledged colleagues and intermediaries who assisted them.