A study on the discourse of early cultural anthoropology made in Göttingen University in the second half of the 18th Century

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24617022
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 文化学
• Research Institution: Kansai University
• Principal Investigator: MORI Takashi 関西大学, 文学部, 教授 (10318743)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 18世紀ドイツ / ゲッティンゲン / 啓蒙主義 / ブルーメンバッハ / カンパー / 顔面角理論 / 人類学 / 優生学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The facial angle theory of Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper and the early German anthropological theories of anatomist Samuel Thomas Sömmerring, comparative anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and natural historian Georg Forster were based on the classism advocated by artistic historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann in the second half of the 18th Century. Their discourses had an theoretical impact on the physiognomy of Swiss writer Johann Kasper Lavater, the phrenology of Wiener nerve anatomist Franz Josef Gall, the criminal atavism of Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, and the anthropometry of French police officer Alphonse Bertillon. These anatomic theories laid the foundation of the anti-Sémite racial theory of Nazi Germany, which made Jews the subjects of human experiments to prove the alledged inferiority of Jews.

Free Research Field

ヨーロッパ紀行文学