Curran, Andrew S. (Author)
Johns Hopkins University Press
Physical Details: 328 pp.; bibl.; index
Language: English
This volume examines the Enlightenment-era textualization of the Black African in European thought. Andrew S. Curran rewrites the history of blackness by replicating the practices of eighteenth-century readers. Surveying French and European travelogues, natural histories, works of anatomy, pro- and anti-slavery tracts, philosophical treatises, and literary texts, Curran shows how naturalists and philosophes drew from travel literature to discuss the perceived problem of human blackness within the nascent human sciences, describes how a number of now-forgotten anatomists revolutionized the era's understanding of black Africans, and charts the shift of the slavery debate from the moral, mercantile, and theological realms toward that of the "black body" itself. In tracing this evolution, he shows how blackness changed from a mere descriptor in earlier periods into a thing to be measured, dissected, handled, and often brutalized. Penetrating and comprehensive, The Anatomy of Blackness shows that, far from being a monolithic idea, eighteenth-century Africanist discourse emerged out of a vigorous, varied dialogue that involved missionaries, slavers, colonists, naturalists, anatomists, philosophers, and Africans themselves.
...MoreReview Newberry, George (2013) Review of "The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment". French History (pp. 287-288).
Essay Review Novoa, Adriana (2015) The Intertwined Paths of Science, Slavery, and Race [Review Essay Number 1552123]. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 348-356).
Review Niekerk, Carl (2012) Review of "The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment". Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 252-254).
Review Hogarth, Rana Asali (2012) Review of "The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 783-784).
Review Newberry, George (2013) Review of "The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment". French History (p. 287).
Review Hudson, Nicholas (2014) Review of "The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 200-202).
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