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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... writes , " Thus racialism operated both according to the same - Other model and through the ' computation of normali- ties ' and ' degrees of deviance ' from the white norm , by means of which racial dif- ference became identified with ...
... writes that " the poor negroes in the West - Indies have suffered enough " of the religion that " philosophers of the North " have produced ( 146 ) . In a reference , perhaps , to Hume's Scottish lineage , he writes that " protestants ...
... writes that " Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as ' the other world , ' the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization , a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant ...
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 |