Louis Laurent Simonin (1830-1886), a mining engineer and native of Marseille, was known to both the scientists of his time and the public at large for his travel writings and reporting on mines across the world. He was also a member of the Société d’anthropologie de Paris. One of his travel accounts is cited by Louis Figuier, the most widely-read science communicator of the period, as part of a comparison between the “red race” and prehistoric men. An analysis of this passage offers the opportunity to rethink the human sciences at the moment of their constitution and, more specifically, to identify the network of knowledge and power in which racism and colonialism are shown to constitute modern scientific discourse on man.
Louis Simonin, ingénieur mineur et expert de la « race rouge »
Trucchio, Aldo
2021-01-01
Abstract
Louis Laurent Simonin (1830-1886), a mining engineer and native of Marseille, was known to both the scientists of his time and the public at large for his travel writings and reporting on mines across the world. He was also a member of the Société d’anthropologie de Paris. One of his travel accounts is cited by Louis Figuier, the most widely-read science communicator of the period, as part of a comparison between the “red race” and prehistoric men. An analysis of this passage offers the opportunity to rethink the human sciences at the moment of their constitution and, more specifically, to identify the network of knowledge and power in which racism and colonialism are shown to constitute modern scientific discourse on man.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
