The von Mises-Fisher distribution of the first exit point from the hypersphere of the drifted Brownian motion and the density of the first exit time

A characterization is provided for the von Mises–Fisher random variable, in terms of first exit point from the unit hypersphere of the drifted Wiener process. Laplace transform formulae for the first exit time from the unit hypersphere of the drifted Wiener process are provided. Post representations in terms of Bell polynomials are provided for the densities of the first exit times from the circle and from the sphere.

Cosmos and Colonialism. Alexander von Humboldt in Cultural Criticism

Alexander von Humboldt explored the Spanish Empire on the verge of its collapse (1799–1804). He is the most significant German travel writer and the most important mediator between Europe and the Americas of the nineteenth century. His works integrated knowledge from two dozen domains. Today, he is at the center of debates on imperial discourse, postcolonialism, and globalization. This collection of fifty essays brings together a range of responses, many presented here for the first time in English. Authors from Schiller, Chateaubriand, Sarmiento, and Nietzsche, to Robert Musil, Kurt Tucholsky, Ernst Bloch, and Alejo Carpentier paint the historical background. Essays by contemporary travel writers and recent critics outline the current controversies on Humboldt. The source materials collected here will be indispensable to scholars of German, French, and Latin and North American literature as well as cultural and postcolonial studies, history, art history, and the history of science.

"Fascinating Voids: Alexander von Humboldt and the Myth of Chimborazo"

When Alexander von Humboldt reached the village of Calpi in the Andes on 22 June 1802, he was greeted with reverence and enthusiasm. Triumphal arches adorned with cotton, cloth, and silver decorated his path. The natives performed a dance in festive dress. A singer praised the explorer's expedition, which had departed three years earlier from the Spanish port of La Coruña. Like Odysseus on the isle of the Phaeacians, the traveler listened to a local rhapsodist singing about his heroic deeds. Before his adventure ended, it had already spun a popular myth. This episode, which Humboldt recorded in his diary, occurred at a significant moment. One day later, the “Second Discoverer of America” rose to even greater fame on an excursion marking in more ways than one the climax of his enterprise. Humboldt set out to climb Chimborazo (6,310 m/20,702 ft.), the mountain then thought to be the highest in the world. He was accompanied by the French botanist Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858) and the Creole nobleman and future activist Carlos Montúfar (1780–1816), as well as native guides and assistants. They climbed to heights never reached before, setting a new record and catapulting Humboldt to fame on both continents.

The scholarly networks of Albrecht von Haller and the Economic Society of Bern – a multi-level network analysis

Here, by the example of the transfer of cultivated plants in the context of the correspondence networks of Albrecht von Haller and the Economic Society, a multi-level network analysis is suggested. By a multi-level procedure, the chronological dynamics, the social structure, the spatial distribution and the functional networking are analyzed one after the other. These four levels of network analysis do not compete with each other but are mutually supporting. This aims at a deeper understanding of how these networks contributed to an international transfer of knowledge in the 18th century.

The Transmission of Manuscripts and the Genetics of Texts. A new critical edition of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival

The discussion on the New Philology triggered by French and North American scholars in the last decade of the 20th century emphasized the material character of textual transmission inside and outside the written evidences of medieval manuscripts by downgrading the active role of the historical author. However, the reception of the ideas propagated by the New Philology adherents was rather divided. Some researchers questioned its innovative status (K. Stackmann: “Neue Philologie?”), others saw a new era of the “powers of philology” evoked (H.-U. Gumbrecht). Besides the debates on the New Philology another concept of textual materiality strengthened in the last decade, maintaining that textual alterations somewhat relate to biogenetic mutations. In a matter of fact, phenomena such as genetic and textual variation, gene recombination and ‘contamination’ (the mixing of different exemplars in one manuscript text) share common features. The paper discusses to what extent the biogenetic concepts can be used for evaluating manifestations of textual production (as the approach of ‘critique génétique’ does) and of textual transmission (as the phylogenetic analysis of manuscript variation does). In this context yet the genealogical concept of stemmatology – the treelike representation of textual development abhorred by the New Philology adepts – might prove to be useful for describing the history of texts. The textual material to be analyzed will be drawn from the Parzival Project, which is currently preparing a new electronic edition of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival novel written shortly after 1200 and transmitted in numerous manuscripts up to the age of printing (www.parzival.unibe.ch). Researches of the project have actually resulted in suggesting that the advanced knowledge of the manuscript transmission yields a more precise idea on the author’s own writing process.