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The author, joined in conversation by Flora Champy and Murielle Perrier, presents his new book, "Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson."
About the book (from the publisher):
An engaging investigation of how thirteen key Enlightenment figures shaped the concept of race, from the acclaimed author of Diderot and the "Art of Thinking Freely."
Over the course of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment natural historians and classifiers redefined what it meant to be human. By 1800, they had recast the very idea of humankind, sorting the world’s peoples into rigid biological categories for the first time in history. Prize-winning biographer Andrew S. Curran retraces this often-misunderstood story by plunging into the lives and ideas of the most influential individuals behind this reconceptualization, among them Louis XIV, Voltaire, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Jefferson.
Moving from the gilded halls of Versailles to the slave plantations of the Caribbean, from the court of the Mughal Empire to the drawing rooms of Monticello, "Biography of a Dangerous Idea" not only reveals the Enlightenment’s entanglement with empire and oppression—it offers a bold reassessment of the era’s most celebrated luminaries.
In conversation:
Andrew S. Curran is the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities at Wesleyan University. A scholar and biographer, his writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, The Guardian, Newsweek, TIME, the Paris Review, and the Wall Street Journal.
Flora Champy is associate professor of French in the department of French and Italian at Princeton University. Her research focuses on eighteenth-century French political literature and philosophy, blending literary analysis with political theory. Her first book, "L’Antiquité politique de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, entre exemples et modèles" (Classiques Garnier, 2022), explores the role of classical Greece and Rome in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political philosophy.
Murielle Perrier is senior lecturer and associate director of the French program at Princeton University. Her teaching and research interests include eighteenth-century literature, contemporary Madagascan culture and literature, and the literacy approach as a pedagogical method. She is the author of "Utopie et libertinage au siècle des Lumières" and she is currently working on another book project that deals with the representation of the body in contemporary Madagascan culture and literature.
Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Humanities | Civic Life | Author Talks | *Registration Requested |
TAGS: | NEH |
