History Dept. Seminar: “From Cabinets of Curiosity to Global Science: How Southeast Asia Shaped Modern Natural History”

Join the Department of History and Professor David Biggs, Department of History at UC Riverside, for a talk: “From Cabinets of Curiosity to Global Science: How Southeast Asia Shaped Modern Natural History.”

Before modern biology, global science was driven by a global obsession with exotic "wonders," especially objects coming from Southeast Asia. This talk explores how imperial trade, regional indigenous knowledge, and cross-cultural encounters intersected in Southeast Asia to transform curiosity cabinets and accounts of wonders into secular natural history. Part of David Biggs’ forthcoming Green History of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2027), this talk examines key figures behind this paradigm shift, including Georg Rumphius, who catalogued Ambonese ecology despite blindness; Simon de la Loubère, whose diplomatic mission to Ayutthaya produced an encyclopedic survey of Siam; Christoforro Borri, a Jesuit astronomer who mapped geomagnetism; and João de Loureiro, who classified Vietnamese medicinal flora using the Linnaean system.

David Biggs is a professor of history at UC Riverside specializing in Southeast Asian environmental history, militarized landscapes, technology, water politics, and global historical geography.