Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, 13.1903

Anthropos, 91.1996,4/6

Bibliographische Daten

Zeitschrift

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714783

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714783

Persistenter Identifier:: BV039673911

Titel:: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde

Untertitel:: neue Folge d. Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft

Weitere Titel:: Verein für Volkskunde <Berlin>: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde

Erscheinungsort:: Berlin

Verlag:: Behrend [[1906-1924]], Verein für Volkskunde, Berlin

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1891

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

Zeitschriftenband

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-708059

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-708059

Persistenter Identifier:: DE-11-001674404

Titel:: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, 13.1903

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1903

Signatur:: LA 8000-13

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Vorderer Buchspiegel

Strukturtyp:: Vorderer Buchspiegel

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

642 Rezensionen Anthropos 91.1996 tions on what and how to observe and to record. This genre should not be confused with travel guides, for the latter lacked the intellectual and moral pretensions of the ars apodemica. This newcomer to the field of knowledge appears to have been “discovered” by sev eral like-minded but independent thinkers at more or less the same time, originating in discussions between humanists from Germany and the Netherlands in Basel around 1570. Influenced by the achievements of Ramist methodology in other fields, they applied the same will to order to travel intended for educational and instructive purposes. If the genre originated in the late 16th century with a primarily public function to aid the adult traveller, by the middle of the following century it was being put to a different use to educate the young. As humanist travel to collect information was superseded by the grand tour, the function of the ars apodemica as an aid to exploration was replaced by its function as a compendium of knowledge already acquired. The ars apodemica thus became increasingly peripheral, and the ever more comprehensive treatises on travel, particularly those connected with Gottingen written towards the end of the 18th century, marked the demise of the genre. The growth of quantitative studies, consolidated after the French Revolution and soon copied by other European nations, relieved travellers of the need to keep on collecting encyclopaedic information. Some of these later developments are dealt with in detail in subsequent chapters. There is a chapter on Count Leopold Berchtold, author of the “Patriotic Trav eller” (first published in 1789), which can be regarded as one of the very last works of the ars apodemica. The last mention of Berchtold’s work that Stagl was able to find in the literature was in 1813; by this time, Stagl notes, it had apparently fulfilled its purpose. Indeed, by the end of the 18th century a shift of interest from the individual and extraordinary to the collective and average had taken place. The last writer to mention the “Patriotic Traveller,” Constantin-François Chasseboeuf, better known as Volney, planned a super-academy under Napoleon in awareness of the fact that the task of col lecting statistics on France and other countries exceeded the ability of any individual. Yet Volney too was fighting a rearguard action in attempting to keep together what were soon to crystallize as separate activities: statistical inquiry, empirical sociology, and ethnography. However, it would be rash to see the ars apodemica as a direct precursor of “Notes and Queries in Anthro pology.” For one thing, although “Notes and Queries” was actually used as a guide to ethnographic research for decades, the encyclopaedic proportions which the ars apodemica assumed rendered it unsuitable for practical use. In a postscriptum on the practical utilization of the ars apodemica (90-94), Stagl assumes that the publica tion of hundreds of travel methods implies that they were used, and thus that they had some effect. Nevertheless, the three highly obscure cases that he does cite are hardly sufficient to substantiate his argument in them selves, and his opinion on Theodor Zwinger’s “Metho- dus apodemica,” which remained an accepted authority on the theory of travel until late in the 17th century, is that it was always more praised than read (58). It is to be hoped that his thorough familiarity with the ars apodemica will encourage him to produce more, and more convincing, examples in some future publication. For the time being, the only justifiable verdict on this point is non liquet. Secondly, the author is not entirely clear on how one is to conceive the relationship between the ars apodemica and ethnographic research and description. The final sentence of the book (296) runs: “Thus ethnographic and sociological fieldwork, though it has made encyclopaedic surveys and instructions for travel lers finally obsolete, nevertheless conserves something of the personal and universal orientation of the old ars apodemica.” In an earlier passage, Stagl characterizes the relation between ethnographic method and the ars apodemica as “hidden”; if the ars apodemica surviv ed in ethnographic fieldwork, it was “in a changed shape” (89). One should thus be wary of eliding the ars apodemica with ethnography. The problem of where to draw the dividing-line between the ars apodemica and ethnography is further complicated by the existence of a third genre: travel writing. In his chapter on “The man who called him self George Psalmanazar,” a discussion of the life and writings of the imposter whose “A Historical and Geo graphical Description of Formosa” (1704) made him the centre of attention of the Royal Society for a time, Stagl argues that Psalmanazar’s book combined the synchro nous arrangement of information on a foreign country and its inhabitants with the chronological order of the travel narrative. In both cases, Psalmanazar’s versions are fakes. Yet despite the obvious relevance of the case of Psalmanazar to travel literature and ethnography - and particularly the question of authenticity -, it is not at all clear that it is relevant to the ars apodemica. This example is symptomatic of the fundamental weakness of the volume under review. Stagl set out to integrate his studies on the art of travel, the history of the survey, and the theory of early statistics into one book. Indeed, the full title of the work - “A History of Curiosity. The Theory of Travel 1550-1800” - is indicative of the ambitious claims that he makes for it. The problem is that the history of the rise and fall of the ars apodemica is too narrow a basis on which to build a history of the forms of social research, let alone a history of curiosity. To some extent Stagl is aware of this problem, but his attempts to widen his inquiry beyond the ars apodemica are not very successful. The introductory chapter, which sets out to document the thesis that social research is coeval with mankind, engages in a highly traditional Weberian schema of zeniths and troughs in the history of social research, though some of them would be more at home in the history of social administration. Some of these themes are taken up in a chapter on early modern surveys and documentation centres, but as the author himself admits, no contemporary body of printed

Zugriffsbeschränkung

Nutzungslizenz

Volltext: Anthropos, 91.1996,4/6

Zeitschrift

Zeitschriftenband

Vorderer Buchspiegel

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Downloads

Ganzer Datensatz

Diese Seite

Bildfragment

Formate und Verlinkungen

Links

Zitieren

Ganzer Datensatz

Diese Seite

Zitierempfehlung