Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. From now until the launch of Oxford Events, new events cannot be published or edited on OxTalks while all existing records are migrated to the new platform. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period.
From 16th, Oxford Events will launch on a new website: events.ox.ac.uk, and event submissions will resume. You will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
In February 1744, the famous Swedish physician Abraham Bäck (1713-95), also known as Carl Linnaeus’s best friend, dissected the corpse and skin of an unknown Black man who had recently died at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris. Black cadavers were rare in eighteenth century Europe, and opportunities to dissect them were few. Dark-skinned corpses were even rarer in countries which did not have colonial possessions nor directly partook in the slave-trade, as was the case of Sweden during the Age of Liberty (Frihetstiden, 1719-72). Based on recently rediscovered archival materials, this talk will explore the little-known research, experiments, and views of Bäck on Black human remains and Blackness, arguing they played a crucial role in shaping Linnaeus’s own views about human taxonomy.
