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Ferdinand Anton Franz Karsch
Born2 September 1853
Münster, Germany
Died20 December 1936
Berlin, Germany
NationalityGerman
Occupation(s)Arachnologist, Entomologist, Anthropologist
Employer(s)Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (Curator, 1878-1921)
Known forExtensive work on spiders, contributions to entomology, research on sexuality
Academic background
Alma materFriedrich Wilhelm University, Berlin
Academic work
Notable worksDas gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Kulturvölker (1906), Das gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker (1911)
External image
image icon portrait photograph of Ferdinand Karsch-Hack.

Ferdinand Anton Franz Karsch (2 September 1853, in Münster – 20 December 1936, in Berlin) was a German arachnologist, entomologist and anthropologist. He also wrote on human and animal sexual diversity with his mother's maiden name included as Ferdinand Karsch-Haack from around 1905.

Life and work

The son of doctor Anton Karsch, he was educated at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and published a thesis on the gall wasp in 1877. From 1878 to 1921 he held the post of curator at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Between 1873 and 1893, he published a catalogue of the spiders of Westphalia; he also published numerous articles on the specimens that the museum received from various explorers and naturalists working in Africa, in China, in Japan, in Australia, etc. This publication of others' work sometimes led to disputes over priority and nomenclature, for example with Pickard-Cambridge.

Alongside his zoological activities, he published many works on sexuality and, in particular, homosexuality in both the animal kingdom and in so-called "primitive" peoples, including Das gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Kulturvölker - Ostasiaten: Chinesen, Japanese, Korea in 1906 on homosexuality in East Asian societies and in 1911 Das gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker on homosexuality in Africa and indigenous societies of Asia, Australia and the Americas. Karsch lived in later life as an open homosexual in Berlin.[1] He also founded and edited a magazine along with René Stelter called Uranos. Blätter für ungeschmälertes Menschentum (1921-23) where he wrote on his scientific ideas. The rise of Hitler to power and Nazi repression of homosexuality led to the eclipse of his reputation.

Some of the animals described

See also: Category:Taxa named by Ferdinand Karsch

Spiders

Other animals

Publications on African butterflies

Wikispecies (see below) provides a list of and links to digitised papers by Karsch

About homosexuality

Literature

References

  1. ^ Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller, Man for Mann, pp410,411

External links

Data related to Ferdinand Karsch at Wikispecies

Authority control databases
Categories