Special Episode: Alexander von Humboldt (with Michael Huldt)

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.6 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we welcome Michael Huldt, host of Worm From Home, an environmental history podcast focused on East London, to discuss the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Born in Berlin in 1769, he would travel the world amassing a wealth of botanical, geological, and human knowledge. Working in Europe, Russia, and South America, Humboldt became a pioneer of Western environmental thinking, breaking with contemporary scientific norms to forge an interconnected, ecological view of the world that still resonates today. His life was one of illuminating contradictions, and he is a fascinating figure for thinking about the creation of new concepts of 'Nature' as racial capitalism was in its ascendancy - a vocal anti-slavery advocate, who was personal friends with Thomas Jefferson; an early European proponent of the idea that colonial extraction created massive environment destruction, who also forged a career through that colonial infrastructure; and a man with many famous friends whose very private - and homosexual - private life is still shrouded in mystery and historiographic embarrassment. Support our show and enjoy monthly extra episodes! Subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. ----more---- SOURCES https://www.andreawulf.com/about-the-invention-of-nature.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pioneering-maps-alexander-von-humboldt-180973342/ https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica-2/people-in-antarctica/alexander-von-humboldt/ https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/explore/alexander-von-humboldt/the-sensual-humboldt-is-yet-to-be-discovered https://qnews.com.au/on-this-day-january-6-von-humboldt-tainted-love/ Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to bad gays, a podcast all about evil and complicated queer people in history.
0:20.2	My name is Hugh Lemmy, and today we have a very special guest.
0:23.4	It's Michael Holt from the Environmental History podcast.
0:26.8	Work from home.
0:27.9	Welcome, Michael.
0:28.9	Thanks, Hugh.
0:29.8	Very nice to be here.
0:30.8	Very nice to have you.
0:32.2	Yeah, I'm very excited about today's episode.
0:34.2	Let's get straight into it.
0:35.0	Who are we going to talk about?
0:35.9	All right. Today we're going to talk about an 18th and 19th century scientist, traveler,
0:40.9	and very likely homosexual, Alexander von Humboldt.
0:44.4	Great. It's a good combination of things.
0:46.2	Absolutely.
0:47.2	Gay geography teacher.
0:48.2	Yeah, exactly.
0:49.3	Alexander von Humboldt was born in 1769 in Berlin, some Prussia at the time. As the von in his name suggests,
0:56.9	he was born into some nobility, not the very highest echelons of the Prussian class system,
1:02.4	but his father had come from a noble family in Pomerania. He had been a major in the Prussian
1:08.4	army and had certain military honours bestowed on him and
1:12.7	Alexander's childhood was one of considerable material privilege.
	...

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