Enlightenment biopolitics : a history of race, eugenics, and the making of citizens / William Max Nelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nelson, William Max, 1976- author.

Series:

Life of ideas

The life of ideas

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, comte, 1748-1836. Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat?.

Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph.

Biopolitics--France--History--18th century.

Biopolitics.

Eugenics--France--History--18th century.

Eugenics.

Eugenics--Philosophy--History--18th century.

Enlightenment--France.

Enlightenment.

France--History--Revolution, 1789-1799.

France.

Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat? (Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, comte).

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

vii, 311 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2024.

Summary:

"In Enlightenment Biopolitics, historian William Max Nelson pursues the ambitious task of tracing the context in which biopolitical thought emerged and circulated. He locates that context in the Enlightenment, when emancipatory ideals sat alongside the horrors of colonialism, slavery, and race-based discrimination. These did not just coexist, Nelson argues; they were actually mutually constitutive of Enlightenment ideals. Nelson focuses on Enlightenment-era visions of eugenics (including proposals to establish programs of selective breeding), forms of penal slavery, and spurious biological arguments about the supposed inferiority of particular groups. The Enlightenment, he shows, was marked by a proliferation of discourses on shaping, harnessing, and "organizing" the minds and especially the bodies of citizens. In his reading of the birth of biopolitics and its transformations over time, Nelson examines the often shocking conceptual and practical connections between inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality, rights and race, the supposed "improvement of the human species" and practices of dehumanization"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Becoming biopolitics

Organizing the swarm of being

Enlightenment eugenics

Making men in the colonies

In society, but not of it

New citizens, new slaves

Making the new man

An evolving constellation

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226825564

0226825566

9780226825588

0226825582

OCLC:

1395221842