Article ID: CBB296727781

A ‘Monster with Human Visage’: The Orangutan, Savagery, and the Borders of Humanity in the Global Enlightenment (2019)

unapi

To what extent did the debate on the orangutan contribute to the global Enlightenment? This article focuses on the first 150 years of the introduction, dissection, and public exposition of the so-called ‘orangutan’ in Europe, between the 1630s, when the first specimens arrived in the Netherlands, and the 1770s, when the British debate about slavery and abolitionism reframed the boundaries between the human and animal kingdoms. Physicians, natural historians, antiquarians, philosophers, geographers, lawyers, and merchants all contributed to the knowledge of the orangutan, while also reshaping the boundaries of humanity: when the human/animal divide narrowed, the divide between ‘savage’ and ‘civilized’ peoples crystallized, becoming wider than in any previous period.

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Article Bruce Buchan; Linda Andersson Burnett (2019) Knowing Savagery: Humanity in the Circuits of Colonial Knowledge. History of the Human Sciences (pp. 3-7). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB296727781/

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Authors & Contributors
Canington, Stephanie L.
Buchan, Bruce
Irving-Stonebraker, Sarah
Lynn Festa
Rogers, Ethan S.
Carter, Noni D.
Concepts
Definition of human; human nature
Natural history
Nature and its relationship to culture; human-nature relationships
Human-animal relationships
Scientific illustration
Spain, colonies
Time Periods
18th century
Enlightenment
17th century
19th century
16th century
Renaissance
Places
Scotland
England
Germany
Europe
Brazil
Tahiti
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