132 - Andrew Curran - Who's Black and Why?

Two for Tea Podcast

General Visit Andrew’s website: https://www.andrewscurran.com/ Find out more about Andrew’s books, including ‘The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment’ and his co-edited, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., volume ‘Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race’, which are the focus of this podcast: https://www.andrewscurran.com/books-gallerypage Follow Andrew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewscurran References Andrew’s previous appearance on Two for Tea discussing Diderot: https://soundcloud.com/twoforteapodcast/42-andy-curren-diderot-intellectual-libertine Olaf Stapledon’s novel ‘Sirius’: https://www.amazon.com/Sirius-Olaf-Stapledon/dp/0575099429/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1656949127&sr=8-2 Theory-ladenness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness David Deutsch’s ‘The Beginning of Infinity’, in which he discusses theory-ladenness: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359 Coleman Hughes’s conversation with Charles Murray on race, science, and IQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE5QcD_12fQ David Deutsch’s Edge essay on the link between the factual understanding of reality and morality: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359 Sunil Khilnani’s book ‘Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives’: https://www.amazon.com/Incarnations-History-India-Fifty-Lives/dp/0374175497 Timestamps 00:00 Opening and introduction. 3:24 Andrew reads from the introduction to ‘Who’s Black and Why?’ on the Bordeaux Academy’s interest in African anatomy and ‘scientific’ race theorising. 9:08 Why did a focus on racial physiognomy arise in the middle of the 18th century? Plus background on the Enlightenment and the radical shift in ways of thinking about the world. 14:19 The Biblical narrative of the origins of race - Noah’s sons and the ‘snowflake’ Old Testament God - and 18th-century theories of degeneration. Monogenesis vs. polygenesis. Implications of these views and their place in the Enlightenment paradigm - the world is not fixed, but has a history of development and change. 23:38 ‘Theory-laden observations’ as related to 18th-century thinking about race and humanity. 26:30 Iona reads an excerpt about Diderot and Voltaire’s views on race and slavery from ‘Who’s Black and Why?’. 33:45 Continued discussion of the link between racial theorising and racism. 46:27 Iona on the instability of being anti-slavery while being racist, with reference to Olaf Stapledon’s novel ‘Sirius’. Ensuing discussion of this theme by Andrew as related to the 18th-century - the legal and then scientific reality of categorising people. 54:54 Iona’s relief that her Enlightenment hero Samuel Johnson is, as far as she knows, untainted by racial theorising. 1:03:02 The contemporary debate on race and IQ. Can we really divorce the is from the ought? Iona’s changing view on this after reading ‘Who’s Black and Why?’. Nature vs nurture and Charles Murray. 1:09:59 The Deutschian idea that a better understanding of reality is linked to better morality. 18th-century thinkers on race and their blindspots - many of their assertions could easily have been disproved just by looking - black blood, black semen, black brains. 1:15:35 The literal obsession with colour - skin colour must be reflected in interior anatomy. The disturbing and telling 18th-century view of albinism - ‘white negroes’ - and vitiligo and racial voyeurism. 1:23:30 Racial essentialism vs the many mixed-race people. Again - how close so many 18th-century thinkers got to the truth, yet how far. 1:26:52 Is there anything Andrew would like to say that hasn’t been covered in this conversation? 1:27:27 Andrew’s upcoming book - a biographical history of race. 1:33:11 Last words and outro.