African-British Writings in the Eighteenth Century: The Politics of Race and ReasonThe eighteenth century was a time of great cultural change in Britain. It was a period marked by expeditions to the New World, Africa, and the Orient, and these voyages were reflected in the travel literature of the era. It was also a period in which seventeenth-century empiricism and the scientific method became dominant, and in which society became increasingly secular. Fundamental to the eighteenth-century worldview was the notion of the Great Chain of Being, in which all creatures and their Creator stood in a hierarchical relationship with one another. The years from 1660 to 1833 witnessed both Britain's participation in slavery and the appropriation of the Great Chain of Being by social anthropologists and political leaders. With the rise of the slave trade, blacks were brought to Britain against their will, where they were enslaved. At the same time, intellectuals of the period tried to place these slaves within the hierarchical frame provided by the Great Chain of Being. |
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... cultures have formed conceptions about culturally diverse groups . After more than a century of negative African ... cultural vocabulary , and the former slave from Benin , West Africa , was well aware of it . In order to alter the ...
... cultural groups . Arguably , such an epistemological configuration depends upon the centrality of author , text , or reader . But it is precisely through outside intervention , via a conducive socioeconomical and political climate ...
... Cultural Politics of ' Race ' and Racism in Britain . " In Anatomy of Racism . Ed . David Theo Goldberg . Minneapolis : Uni- versity of Minnesota Press , 1990 . There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack : The Cultural Politics of Race and ...
Contents
Enlightenment Humanism | 1 |
Perspectives on a Theological Chain | 31 |
Conclusion | 149 |
Copyright | |
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African-British Writings in the Eighteenth Century: The Politics of Race and ... Helena Woodard No preview available - 1999 |