An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered online only by Dr Ian Stewart (Research Fellow: University of Edinburgh’s Historical Links to African Enslavement and Colonialism, 2023-2025)
Racial Theory, ‘Civilization’, and the University of Edinburgh, c.1764-1810
This paper recovers the racial theory developed and taught at the University of Edinburgh while it was at the height of its reputation as one of the leading universities of the Enlightenment. While significant recent attention has fallen on the Medical School, this paper focuses on ‘race’ as it was taught by the moral philosophers Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart. For accidental reasons, Stewart’s racial theory was never published, and in recovering it this paper shows how racial theory was taught as an important component of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh for several decades, contributing to the rise of more systematic racial science. It concludes with an examination of Edinburgh alumni who imbibed these theories as students and went on to deploy them in America, Africa, and India.
Please join via the link below:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81857401179
Passcode: 6aSe7GF7