Papers by Silvia Sebastiani
History of European Ideas, 48:1, 2022
The erudite James Burnet, Lord Monboddo (1714–1799), member of the
Select Society and judge of th... more The erudite James Burnet, Lord Monboddo (1714–1799), member of the
Select Society and judge of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, wrote
many pages about the existence of ‘men with tails’ and orang-utans’
humanity. For this reason, he has been labelled as ‘credulous’, ‘bizarre’
and ‘eccentric’ both by his contemporaries and by modern scholars. In
this paper, I shall try to take his argument seriously and to show that
throughout his work Monboddo searched for evidence. If his belief in
mermaids, giants, blemmyes, daemons and oracles was far from
reflecting the general attitude of the age of Enlightenment and
empiricism, Monboddo contributed to place the ‘science of man’ at the
centre of the map of knowledge, where Nicholas Phillipson had also
located it. He did this by emphasising the variety and historicity of
humankind and stressing how mind and body changed over time and
space. This article is also an attempt to connect Monboddo’s erudite
production with his position as a lawyer and a judge. I shall argue that
Monboddo founded his ‘science of man’ on an epistemology of legal
evidence, employing the same inquisitive approach that he practiced at
the bar and in the court.
History of the Human Sciences, vol. 32, n. 4, 2019
To what extent did the debate on the orangutan contribute to the global Enlightenment? This artic... more 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.
Defining the boundaries between the animal and the human is a recurrent concern for the Enlighten... more Defining the boundaries between the animal and the human is a recurrent concern for the Enlightenment science of man. My chapter explores this question from a specific and situated context – that of Britain in the 1770s and 1780s – and by dealing with a particular object: the orang-utan. I shall argue that the uses to which comparative anatomy – appropriated in different disciplinary frameworks, such as natural and philosophical histories – was put had a deep impact on the British debate about slavery. My enquiry will focus on two cases that emphasize the historical and epistemological relationship between apes and slaves: the Scottish judge James Burnet, Lord Monboddo (1714-99), who saw the orang-utan as exemplifying primordial man, and the English planter Edward Long, who stressed the resemblance between the orang-utan and the African. Within this context, the humanization of the orang-utan went hand in hand with the animalization of the ›savage‹ – a category embracing the Africans and the Amerindians, but also, at the very heart of Europe, the wild boys and girls found in the forests, or the poor. Law, medicine, natural sciences, and politics, while reshaping the boundaries between humans and apes, also contributed to increase the distance between man and man.
This chapter explores the production of racial knowledge through its circulation and appropriatio... more This chapter explores the production of racial knowledge through its circulation and appropriations across the Atlantic world, in the crucial period 1787–1810. The entangled analysis of the three editions of Samuel Stanhope Smith’s _An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species_ and of their different agencies charts a new trans-Atlantic and trans-imperial understanding of the science of anthropology, and its emerging in university curricula, between Britain and the newborn United States. It shows the part played by the debates on slavery in reshaping the Enlightenment “science of man” for postcolonial America.
This article analyzes the impact that the shift in medical practices – appropriated in different ... more This article analyzes the impact that the shift in medical practices – appropriated in different disciplinary frameworks, such as philosophical and natural histories – had on the British debate about slavery in the 1770s. It focuses on the uses of the debates about the orangutan, whose humanization was accompanied by a bestialization of the “savage” man. The article shows how British advocates of slavery employed theories that closely linked orangutans and Blacks, in order to justify their political positions. In so doing, they strengthened the camp of the philosophers, physicians, and politicians who contributed to breaking the unity of the human species.
The analysis traces the uses to which Edward Tyson’s work was put. His dissection of an orangutan (actually a chimpanzee) in London in 1698, and his point-by-point comparison with the human body, marked a shift in eighteenth-century medical practices that affected the philosophical and historical definition of man himself. The parallels drawn by the anatomist on the plane of the body and the brain led him to suggest a possible continuity between the animal and the human world, that stressed the fragility of the borders between them. As a result of this experience, the comparison between apes and “savage” men – a category including Blacks and Amerindians, but also the wild boys and girls found in Europe – became a recurrent feature of Enlightenment comparative anatomy, a branch of medicine in full expansion in this period.
In the 1780s, the dispute about the New World entered a new phase. Creole voices redesign the spa... more In the 1780s, the dispute about the New World entered a new phase. Creole voices redesign the spatial, political and economic matrix of modern thought about race within an Atlantic framework. This article considers the successful commercial enterprise of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, conceived in Scotland, by focusing on the changing eighteenth-century entry on “America”. It examines the intellectual shift of reference from the Scottish Enlightenment of W. Robertson to the antiquarian history advocated by F.X. Clavijero, a Mexican Jesuit, exiled in the Papal States. The new cartography of knowledge endorsed by the Encyclopaedia led to a racial classification associating Scriptures and providential history.
Announcement of the three volume book Dominique Pestre has edited. In the first volume, De la Ren... more Announcement of the three volume book Dominique Pestre has edited. In the first volume, De la Renaissance aux Lumières, Stéphane Van Damme dir., Silvia Sebastiani and Jean-Frédéric Schaub published the chapter : "Savoirs de l’autre ? L’émergence des questions de race "
Books by Silvia Sebastiani
In the course of a flood of ascriptions and assumptions, the ape stereotype evolved into a persis... more In the course of a flood of ascriptions and assumptions, the ape stereotype evolved into a persistent marker of otherness. As the contributions to this volume of the Racism Analysis Yearbook show, its expiration date has not yet passed. The papers discuss the varying dimensions of simianization in the context of sexist and racist discrimination. Charles W. Mills (Northwestern University) determines the place of simianization within racism. Wulf D. Hund (Universität Hamburg) traces the conjunctions of sexist, racist and classist discriminations in the history of simianization. David Livingstone Smith and Ioana Panaitiu (University of New England) consider the foundation of dehumanization. Silvia Sebastiani (Centre des recherches historiques – EHESS) explores the drawing of boundaries between apes and men during the Enlightenment. Stefanie Affeldt (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg) looks at ›King Kong‹ as an aggressive story of sexist and racist counter-emancipation. Susan C. Townsend (University of Nottingham) investigates the simianization of the Japanese and Steve Garner (Open University) examines the simianization of the Irish. Kimberly Barsamian Kahn (Portland State University), Phillip Atiba Goff (University of California) and Jean M. McMahon (Portland State University) discuss the persisting intersections of prejudice and dehumanization.
Edited Journals by Silvia Sebastiani
Dos mujeres bajo un parasol rojo. Una de ellas, blanca; la otra, negra. La esclava porta la sombr... more Dos mujeres bajo un parasol rojo. Una de ellas, blanca; la otra, negra. La esclava porta la sombrilla para proteger a su ama de los efectos del sol. Todo ocurre en un mercado, en medio de la vida cotidiana en las Antillas. Esta circunstancia hace parte de algo más amplio. En un primer plano aparecen seres de diferentes colores, mercancías de consumo, textiles, arte, animales y, nuevamente, esclavos o pardos libres. En un segundo plano, incluso más extenso, se divisa el mar insinuando una red de comercio transatlántico. En medio de ese acontecimiento congelado se intuyen aspectos, aunque sin representación evidente. Muchos los sentían y vivían: prejuicios, estereotipos y jerarquías sociales que juntos formaban una poderosa matriz social del mundo colonial. La imagen es sin duda solo un fragmento del día a día. No hace falta decirlo, se trata de la portada del presente número, una pintura de Agostino Brunias de finales del siglo xviii que comentamos como abrebocas para el nuevo dossier en manos del lector.
Book Reviews by Silvia Sebastiani
Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, n. 32, 2018
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Papers by Silvia Sebastiani
Select Society and judge of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, wrote
many pages about the existence of ‘men with tails’ and orang-utans’
humanity. For this reason, he has been labelled as ‘credulous’, ‘bizarre’
and ‘eccentric’ both by his contemporaries and by modern scholars. In
this paper, I shall try to take his argument seriously and to show that
throughout his work Monboddo searched for evidence. If his belief in
mermaids, giants, blemmyes, daemons and oracles was far from
reflecting the general attitude of the age of Enlightenment and
empiricism, Monboddo contributed to place the ‘science of man’ at the
centre of the map of knowledge, where Nicholas Phillipson had also
located it. He did this by emphasising the variety and historicity of
humankind and stressing how mind and body changed over time and
space. This article is also an attempt to connect Monboddo’s erudite
production with his position as a lawyer and a judge. I shall argue that
Monboddo founded his ‘science of man’ on an epistemology of legal
evidence, employing the same inquisitive approach that he practiced at
the bar and in the court.
The analysis traces the uses to which Edward Tyson’s work was put. His dissection of an orangutan (actually a chimpanzee) in London in 1698, and his point-by-point comparison with the human body, marked a shift in eighteenth-century medical practices that affected the philosophical and historical definition of man himself. The parallels drawn by the anatomist on the plane of the body and the brain led him to suggest a possible continuity between the animal and the human world, that stressed the fragility of the borders between them. As a result of this experience, the comparison between apes and “savage” men – a category including Blacks and Amerindians, but also the wild boys and girls found in Europe – became a recurrent feature of Enlightenment comparative anatomy, a branch of medicine in full expansion in this period.
Books by Silvia Sebastiani
Edited Journals by Silvia Sebastiani
Book Reviews by Silvia Sebastiani
Select Society and judge of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, wrote
many pages about the existence of ‘men with tails’ and orang-utans’
humanity. For this reason, he has been labelled as ‘credulous’, ‘bizarre’
and ‘eccentric’ both by his contemporaries and by modern scholars. In
this paper, I shall try to take his argument seriously and to show that
throughout his work Monboddo searched for evidence. If his belief in
mermaids, giants, blemmyes, daemons and oracles was far from
reflecting the general attitude of the age of Enlightenment and
empiricism, Monboddo contributed to place the ‘science of man’ at the
centre of the map of knowledge, where Nicholas Phillipson had also
located it. He did this by emphasising the variety and historicity of
humankind and stressing how mind and body changed over time and
space. This article is also an attempt to connect Monboddo’s erudite
production with his position as a lawyer and a judge. I shall argue that
Monboddo founded his ‘science of man’ on an epistemology of legal
evidence, employing the same inquisitive approach that he practiced at
the bar and in the court.
The analysis traces the uses to which Edward Tyson’s work was put. His dissection of an orangutan (actually a chimpanzee) in London in 1698, and his point-by-point comparison with the human body, marked a shift in eighteenth-century medical practices that affected the philosophical and historical definition of man himself. The parallels drawn by the anatomist on the plane of the body and the brain led him to suggest a possible continuity between the animal and the human world, that stressed the fragility of the borders between them. As a result of this experience, the comparison between apes and “savage” men – a category including Blacks and Amerindians, but also the wild boys and girls found in Europe – became a recurrent feature of Enlightenment comparative anatomy, a branch of medicine in full expansion in this period.