Conférencier afro-descendant en phrénologie

Conférencier afro-descendant en phrénologie.

“This is one of four offensive caricatures that use ethnicity as the context for ridiculing contemporary pseudo-science. By making the lecturer black and using racist language and style in the accompanying ‘lecture’ text, the series attacks the fashion for scientific lectures and the subjects being presented. They play on attributes then stereotypically seen as being inherent to the black population, including drunkenness, dirt, thieving, lechery and lack of education. This lecture focuses on phrenology, a science built on examining the shape of a person’s skull to determine their physical attributes. Even at the time, many people questioned whether this was a science. The method was used to argue for certain types of people being inferior, which the text implies to be the case for black people as opposed to white. ” (source : https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co8014516).