The Orangutan in Enlightenment Anthropology

Session 1: Thinking About Animals
Moderator: William Marx (Collège de France)

Abstract

The “orangutan,” or “man of the woods,” made its debut in 17^th-century Europe through the earliest treatises on medical casuistry, among other clinical cases. Its similarity to human beings blurred the line between humanity and animality, a central concern of Enlightenment anthropology. The quest for this singular being led along the routes of the triangular trade, which supplied European metropolises with specimens, raising the question of “degrees” of humanity. From slave ships to public spectacles, and then to museum display cases, the orangutan thus becomes a central figure in anthropological controversies that, in seeking to determine the boundaries of what it means to be human, help to define and establish a hierarchy around those of race and gender.

Silvia Sebastiani

Silvia Sebastiani is a director of studies at EHESS. A specialist in the Enlightenment—particularly the Scottish Enlightenment—she focuses on issues of race, gender, and the writing of history. She is the author of The Scottish Enlightenment: Race, Progress, and the Limits of Progress (2013; Italian edition, 2008) and co-author, with Jean-Frédéric Schaub, of Race and History in Western Societies (15^th–18^th Centuries) (2021). She is currently completing a book on the boundaries of humanity in the 18^th century, which examines the role of great apes in the formation of the humanities and social sciences.