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CATEGORIES:Departmental Seminars in History and Philosophy of
  Science
SUMMARY:Slavery in the cabinet of curiosities: Hans Sloane
 's Atlantic world - James Delbourgo (McGill Univer
 sity and Visiting Fellow\, CRASSH)
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20080529T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20080529T180000
UID:TALK11571AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/11571
DESCRIPTION:The history of science has rarely if ever explored
  the links between making natural knowledge and th
 e practice of African slavery in the early modern 
 era. Science and slavery would seem to have repres
 ented opposite extremes of hierarchies of work and
  skill: the agency of rational ingenuity versus th
 e regimented command of productive hands and bodie
 s. By the eighteenth century\, figurative chains o
 f being contrasted the apex of Newtonian genius wi
 th the nadir of 'Hottentot savagery'. The varied c
 areer of the naturalist-collector Hans Sloane (166
 0-1753) provides a rich opportunity to explore how
  worlds of slavery and science were\, however\, co
 nnected rather than separate. Best known for assem
 bling the collection of natural specimens and arti
 ficial curiosities that formed the basis of the Br
 itish Museum\, Sloane spent fifteen months in Jama
 ica during 1687-1689 and\, in the aftermath of thi
 s voyage\, appears to have become the first person
  in western Europe to collect\, preserve and descr
 ibe artefacts pertaining specifically to slavery: 
 nooses and whips to discipline and execute African
 s\; their musical instruments and culinary utensil
 s\; clothing and weaponry used by Maroon rebels in
  Jamaica\; and also African human remains\, includ
 ing skin\, foetal and genital material. Sloane thu
 s anticipated abolitionist campaigners later in th
 e century\, who collected and displayed the instru
 ments of enslavement. His career invites explorati
 on of how slavery was made public through objects 
 of curiosity well before abolitionist debates made
  such artefacts triggers of political concern. The
  paper aims to raise several related questions: ho
 w slavery both supported the practice of natural s
 cience and stimulated thinking about 'race'\; how 
 natural history's regimes of collection\, descript
 ion and preservation enabled invisible instruments
  of economic utility to become visible objects of 
 curiosity and\, ultimately\, politics\; and how en
 slaved African agency both made and contested know
 ledge in the Atlantic world.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science
 \, Department of
CONTACT:Lauren Kassell
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