Educating Feeling: Race and Sentimental Science in Aglaé Comte’s Histoire naturelle racontée à la jeunesse

Abstract

ABSTRACT The third edition of Aglaé Comte's Histoire naturelle racontée à la jeunesse (1853) includes an understudied introduction on “human races.” While it avows the theory of monogenesis, praises abolition and displays compassion for Black peoples, it also affirms white supremacy based on the “civilized” status of white bodies and Western cultures. Comte uses tropes of sentimentalism: sympathy with oppressed persons, appeals to pathos and calls for benevolent action. Using affect studies and Black studies, I demonstrate how Comte teaches a biocultural account of race that perpetuates hierarchies, encourages sympathy instead of structural change and mobilizes paternalistic power.