{"product_id":"the-anatomy-of-blackness-science-slavery-in-an-age-of-enlightenment-9781421409658","title":"The Anatomy of Blackness: Science \u0026 Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment","description":"\u003cp\u003e2012 Outstanding Academic Title, \u003ci\u003eChoice Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis 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 \u003ci\u003ephilosophes\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePenetrating and comprehensive, \u003ci\u003eThe Anatomy of Blackness\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAndrew S. Curran \u003c\/b\u003eis a professor of French at Wesleyan University and a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine in the history of medicine. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eSublime Disorder: Physical Monstrosity in Diderot's Universe\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50334815617298,"sku":"9781421409658","price":37.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_24364a5d-49ed-4044-8889-65ded0230442.jpg?v=1727895311","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-anatomy-of-blackness-science-slavery-in-an-age-of-enlightenment-9781421409658","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}