Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences

Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences PDF Author: Susanne Lettow
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438449496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Investigates the impact of theories of reproduction and heredity on the emerging concepts of race and gender at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Focusing on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this volume highlights the scientific and philosophical inquiry into heredity and reproduction and the consequences of these developing ideas on understandings of race and gender. Neither the life sciences nor philosophy had fixed disciplinary boundaries at this point in history. Kant, Hegel, and Schelling weighed in on these questions alongside scientists such as Caspar Friedrich Wolff, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Karl Ernst von Baer. The essays in this volume chart the development of modern gender polarizations and a naturalized, scientific understanding of gender and race that absorbed and legitimized cultural assumptions about difference and hierarchy.

Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences

Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences PDF Author: Susanne Lettow
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438449496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Get Book Here

Book Description
Investigates the impact of theories of reproduction and heredity on the emerging concepts of race and gender at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Focusing on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this volume highlights the scientific and philosophical inquiry into heredity and reproduction and the consequences of these developing ideas on understandings of race and gender. Neither the life sciences nor philosophy had fixed disciplinary boundaries at this point in history. Kant, Hegel, and Schelling weighed in on these questions alongside scientists such as Caspar Friedrich Wolff, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Karl Ernst von Baer. The essays in this volume chart the development of modern gender polarizations and a naturalized, scientific understanding of gender and race that absorbed and legitimized cultural assumptions about difference and hierarchy.

The Enlightenment and Race and Gender

The Enlightenment and Race and Gender PDF Author: Susanna Harper
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783656542179
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,0, language: English, abstract: For centuries, the term 'Enlightenment' has been used by historiographers and historians to refer to a period in history which was marked by great change in the way people thought about the essence of life. It was coined by people who believed that they had finally found answers to life's problems - not in religion but in science. Many revolutions were born out of this age of reason, including the French Revolution which today is generally used to mark the end of the Enlightenment era. Its ideals of liberte, egalite and fraternite were carried through out Europe and even into the Americas. Yet, whether these goals were achieved, especially in connection with gender and race, shall be further discussed in this essay. At the outset of this paper will be a brief introduction to the Enlightenment and its most important philosophes. In the following two chapters, this paper will take a closer look at the relationship between the Enlightenment and ideas of race and gender. How did Enlightenment thinkers address and handle these topics? What was the legacy of Enlightenment concerning women and in particular black emancipation? How does anti-Semitism relate to the subject, and how could racism avail in societies that claimed to stand for equality of rights? Acknowledging that the United States of America is a nation which was founded and thoroughly shaped by Enlightenment thinkers, this paper will focus just as much on the developments in the nation states of Europe as it will on the United States of America.

The Scottish Enlightenment

The Scottish Enlightenment PDF Author: Silvia Sebastiani
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349296224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress.

The Color of Equality

The Color of Equality PDF Author: Devin J. Vartija
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812253191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Enlightenment thinkers bequeathed a paradoxical legacy to the modern world: they expanded the purview of equality while simultaneously inventing the modern concept of race. The Color of Equality makes sense of this tension by demonstrating that the same Enlightenment impulse—the naturalization of humanity—underlay both of these trends.

The Racial Contract

The Racial Contract PDF Author: Charles W. Mills
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501764306
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged "contract" has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence "whites" and "non-whites," full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state. As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, provoke, and influence thinking about the intersection of the racist underpinnings of political philosophy.

The German Invention of Race

The German Invention of Race PDF Author: Sara Eigen
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791482073
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In The German Invention of Race, historians, philosophers, and scholars in literary, cultural, and religious studies trace the origins of the concept of "race" to Enlightenment Germany and seek to understand the issues at work in creating a definition of race. The work introduces a significant connection to the history of race theory as contributors show that the language of race was deployed in contexts as apparently unrelated as hygiene; aesthetics; comparative linguistics; anthropology; debates over the status of science, theology, and philosophy; and Jewish emancipation. The concept of race has no single point of origin, and has never operated within the constraints of a single definition. As the essays in this book trace the powerful resonances of the term in diverse contexts, both before and long after the invention of the scientific term around 1775, they help explain how this pseudoconcept could, in a few short decades, have become so powerful in so many fields of thought and practice. In addition, the essays show that the fateful rise of racial thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was made possible not only by the establishment of physical anthropology as a field, but also by other disciplines and agendas linked by the enduring associations of the word "race."

The Diversity Delusion

The Diversity Delusion PDF Author: Heather Mac Donald
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 125020092X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
By the New York Times bestselling author: a provocative account of the attack on the humanities, the rise of intolerance, and the erosion of serious learning America is in crisis, from the university to the workplace. Toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton? Oppressive. American history? Tyranny. Professors correcting grammar and spelling, or employers hiring by merit? Racist and sexist. Students emerge into the working world believing that human beings are defined by their skin color, gender, and sexual preference, and that oppression based on these characteristics is the American experience. Speech that challenges these campus orthodoxies is silenced with brute force. The Diversity Delusion argues that the root of this problem is the belief in America’s endemic racism and sexism, a belief that has engendered a metastasizing diversity bureaucracy in society and academia. Diversity commissars denounce meritocratic standards as discriminatory, enforce hiring quotas, and teach students and adults alike to think of themselves as perpetual victims. From #MeToo mania that blurs flirtations with criminal acts, to implicit bias and diversity compliance training that sees racism in every interaction, Heather Mac Donald argues that we are creating a nation of narrowed minds, primed for grievance, and that we are putting our competitive edge at risk. But there is hope in the works of authors, composers, and artists who have long inspired the best in us. Compiling the author’s decades of research and writing on the subject, The Diversity Delusion calls for a return to the classical liberal pursuits of open-minded inquiry and expression, by which everyone can discover a common humanity.

Fearing the Black Body

Fearing the Black Body PDF Author: Sabrina Strings
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479886750
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Winner, 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2020 Sociology of Sex and Gender Distinguished Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association How the female body has been racialized for over two hundred years There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor Black women are particularly stigmatized as “diseased” and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat Black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago. Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals—where fat bodies were once praised—showing that fat phobia, as it relates to Black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority. The author argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. Indeed, it was not until the early twentieth century, when racialized attitudes against fatness were already entrenched in the culture, that the medical establishment began its crusade against obesity. An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn’t about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice.

Racism

Racism PDF Author: Ali Rattansi
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198834799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Racism is ever present today, and it has become common now to refer to a variety of racisms, from biological to cultural, colour-blind, and structural racisms. Ali Rattansi explores the history of racism and illuminates contemporary issues in this controversial subject, from intersectionality to cultural racism, to the debate over whiteness.

Wandering

Wandering PDF Author: Sarah Jane Cervenak
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822376342
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Combining black feminist theory, philosophy, and performance studies, Sarah Jane Cervenak ruminates on the significance of physical and mental roaming for black freedom. She is particularly interested in the power of wandering or daydreaming for those whose mobility has been under severe constraint, from the slave era to the present. Since the Enlightenment, wandering has been considered dangerous and even criminal when associated with people of color. Cervenak engages artist-philosophers who focus on wayward movement and daydreaming, or mental travel, that transcend state-imposed limitations on physical, geographic movement. From Sojourner Truth's spiritual and physical roaming to the rambling protagonist of Gayl Jones's novel Mosquito, Cervenak highlights modes of wandering that subvert Enlightenment-based protocols of rationality, composure, and upstanding comportment. Turning to the artists Pope.L (William Pope.L), Adrian Piper, and Carrie Mae Weems, Cervenak argues that their work produces an otherworldly movement, an errant kinesis that exceeds locomotive constraints, resisting the straightening-out processes of post-Enlightenment, white-supremacist, capitalist, sexist, and heteronormative modernity. Their roaming animates another terrain, one where free, black movement is not necessarily connected to that which can be seen, touched, known, and materially valued.