Keeping an eye on the Blacks. Hypothesis for a “iconoirlogie”

Résumé 0

This study offers a new angle of research inspired by recent works of the author on the subject of race, and influenced by the rich field of studies in iconology and visual cultures at the end of the eigheenth century, approaches that could be united under the rubric of “ iconoirlogie”. Once slaves became equal with the law of 16 pluviose an II, they could no longer be considered simply as Africans, alone, for they were now Frenchmen, equal in the same rights as other Frenchmen. For the majority of the Metropolitan population and its intellectuals, however, this situation proved inconceivable. Indeed, after 1802 and the reestablishment of slavery, a new stigmatisation of the “Other” emerged, stirring debates concerning the darkness of the skin. The nineteenth century thus invented a “new” black man, a new black to more easily subjugate, racially.