Science Series: Les Voyages de Baudin

It is a remarkable fact that,despite the political and institutional turmoil created in France by the 1789 Revolution, successive governments found the wherewithal to organise a number of major scientific expeditions during the decade or so that followed. One of the most ambitious of these scientific ventures, in terms of both its scope and the human and material resources it mobilised, was Nicolas Baudin’s voyage of discovery to the “Southern Lands” (1800-1804), which was approved and sponsored by none other than the First Consul himself, Napoleon Bonaparte.

The two lectures in this series offer a fresh assessment of the scientific achievements of that voyage, and of some of the expedition’s key figures. In so doing, these talks aim to highlight the pivotal role played by the Baudin expedition in the debate regarding the role and nature of the scientific voyager – a debate for which the exploration of Australia served as the backdrop

Conference I - The Science of the Baudin Expedition Friday 13 May - 6:30pm to 7:30pm
Conference II - The Baudin Expedition and the Figure of the Scientific Voyager Friday 10 June - 6:30pm to 7:30pm