ECU Libraries Catalog

Fugitive science : empiricism and freedom in early African American culture / Britt Rusert.

Author/creator Rusert, Britt author.
Format Book and Print
Publication Info New York : New York University Press, [2017]
Descriptionxiv, 293 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Subject(s)
Series America and the long 19th century
America and the long 19th century. ^A785335
Contents The Banneker Age : Black Afterlives of Early National Science -- Comparative Anatomies : Re-visions of Racial Science -- Experiments in Freedom : Fugitive Science in Transatlantic Performance -- Delany's Comet : Blake, or, The Huts of America and the Science Fictions of Slavery -- Sarah's Cabinet : Fugitive Science in and Beyond the Parlor.
Scope and content "Fugitive Science excavates this story, uncovering the dynamic scientific engagements and experiments of African American writers, performers, and other cultural producers who mobilized natural science and produced alternative knowledges in the quest for and name of freedom. Literary and cultural critics have a particularly important role to play in uncovering the history of fugitive science since these engagements and experiments often happened, not in the laboratory or the university, but in print, on stage, in the garden, church, parlor, and in other cultural spaces and productions. Routinely excluded from the official spaces of scientific learning and training, black cultural actors transformed the spaces of the everyday into laboratories of knowledge and experimentation"--Introduction.
Abstract "Traversing the archives of early African American literature, performance, and visual culture, Britt Rusert uncovers the dynamic experiments of a group of black writers, artists, and performers. Fugitive Science chronicles a little-known story about race and science in America. While the history of scientific racism in the nineteenth century has been well-documented, there was also a counter-movement of African Americans who worked to refute its claims. Far from rejecting science, these figures were careful readers of antebellum science who linked diverse fields--from astronomy to physiology--to both on-the-ground activism and more speculative forms of knowledge creation. Routinely excluded from institutions of scientific learning and training, they transformed cultural spaces like the page, the stage, the parlor, and even the pulpit into laboratories of knowledge and experimentation. From the recovery of neglected figures like Robert Benjamin Lewis, Hosea Easton, and Sarah Mapps Douglass, to new accounts of Martin Delany, Henry Box Brown, and Frederick Douglass, Fugitive Science makes natural science central to how we understand the origins and development of African American literature and culture. This distinct and pioneering book will spark interest from anyone wishing to learn more on race and society."--Publisher's description
General note"Also available as an ebook"--Title page verso.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Genre/formHistory.
LCCN 2016041810
ISBN9781479885688 (cloth ; acid-free paper)
ISBN1479885681 (cloth ; acid-free paper)
ISBN9781479847662 (paperback ; acid-free paper)
ISBN1479847666 (paperback ; acid-free paper)

Available Items

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks E185.89 .I56 B78 2017 ✔ Available Place Hold