© Guillaume de L'Isle, 1720
Race and Common Humanity in Enlightenment Thought

The Color of Equality

The Enlightenment is often either praised as the wellspring of egalitarianism and the modern philosophy of human rights or blamed as the source of racism, sexism, and all that has gone wrong in modernity. On the basis of his new book, The Color of Equality: Race and Common Humanity in Enlightenment Thought (University of Pennsylvania Press), historian Devin J. Vartija will discuss the contradictory legacy of the Enlightenment together with Shiru Lim, Amada M’charek, Silvia Sebastiani and Alicia Montoya.

There are no seats available anymore to attend this event at SPUI25, but you can watch the event online. Sign up for the livestream. 

The Color of Equality investigates both the inclusive language of common humanity and the hierarchical language of race in Enlightenment thought, seeking to understand how eighteenth-century thinkers themselves made sense of these tensions. Enlightenment thinkers used physical features to categorize humanity into novel “racial” groups in a discourse that was imbued with Eurocentric aesthetic and moral judgments. Simultaneously, however, these very same thinkers politicized equality by putting it to new uses, such as a vitriolic denunciation of slavery and inhumane treatment that was grounded in the nascent philosophy of human rights.

Vartija contends that the tension between Enlightenment ideas of race and equality can best be explained by these thinkers’ attempt to provide a naturalistic account of humanity, including both our physical and moral attributes. Furthermore, he demonstrates in his book that our present-day thinking about human physical and cultural diversity continues to be deeply informed by an eighteenth-century European intellectual revolution with global ramifications. During this event, Vartija discusses his findings with Shiru Lim, Amada M’charek, Silvia Sebastiani and Alicia Montoya.

About the speakers

Devin J. Vartija is assistant professor of history at Utrecht University as well as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. He holds a doctorate (2018) as well as a research master’s degree (2012) from Utrecht University and a bachelor’s degree (2010) from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

Amade M’charek is Professor Anthropology of Science at the department of Anthropology of the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests are in forensics, forensic anthropology and race.

Alicia Montoya is Professor of French Literature and Culture at Radboud University. ​She is also Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded MEDIATE project (Measuring Enlightenment: Disseminating Ideas, Authors, and Texts in Europe, 1665-1830), that studies book ownership and the circulation of ideas in Enlightenment Europe. She has authored various publications such as Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge 2013), and is the co-editor of several volumes, including Women Writing Back / Writing Back Women: Transnational Perspectives from the Late Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Modern Era (Leiden, 2010).

Silvia Sebastiani is Directrices d’études (Professor) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where she teaches research seminars on Enlightenment historiography and on the ideology of race in the early modern period. Specialist of the Scottish Enlightenment, she has extensively published on the questions of race, gender, animality and history writing in international journals and collective volumes. She is the author of The Scottish Enlightenment: Race, Gender, and the Limits of Progress (2013), and the coauthor, with Jean-Frédéric Schaub, of Race et histoire dans les sociétés occidentales (15e-18e siècle) (2021).

Shiru Lim (moderator) is an historian of political thought. Her research explores the relationship between knowledge and power, and between intellectuals and the state, with a particular focus on Enlightenment Europe. From October, she will be a fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies.

Gerelateerde programma’s
04 12 23
LGBTQI+ and Women’s Rights in The Face of Democratic Erosion

The rise of transnational conservative networks in Latin America and Europe forms a threat to LGBTQI+ and women’s rights. This event aims to discuss the challenges that arise in the LGBTQI+ and women’s rights movement in Latin America and Europe, as well as the role of civil society and academia in counteracting these challenges.

Datum
Maandag 4 dec 2023 20:00 uur
Locatie
SPUI25
29 05 24
Challenging discriminatory algorithms through legal means
The Meta Case

Is Facebook potentially violating Dutch equality laws? In this event, leading up to a hearing of the case before the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights against digital giant Meta, we delve into the origins of this Meta Case and engage in a broader conversation about how technological developments can reflect, identify, and address societal issues such as sexism, racism, and other types of discrimination.

Datum
Woensdag 29 mei 2024 17:00 uur
Locatie
SPUI25
29 11 23
Update Language: On Current (Sign) Linguistics

In Update Language 2023, two of the UvA’s leading linguistics researchers talk about current trends in their specific take on linguistics. Floris Roelofsen and Titia Benders will each give a lecture about their respective research fields: sign languages and spoken languages. Afterwards they will engage in conversation about the current research developments in their fields.

Datum
Woensdag 29 nov 2023 20:00 uur
Locatie
SPUI25