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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... racial hierarchy , racial exclusion , and racial vulnerability and availability on nonblacks " ( to return to my introductory quotation from Toni Morrison ) . Because of its penchant for imposing order on creation and humanity , its ...
... racial studies.20 In other words , studies that linked race to gender have typically marginalized the black female or omitted her altogether from racial consideration , thereby making race and gender mutually exclusive . Prince's ...
... racial dif- ference became identified with other forms of sexual and social perversity as degen- eracy , deformation or arrested embryological development " ( 180 ) . 11. Anthony Appiah provides a useful definition of the term ...
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 |