Antebellum posthuman: race and materiality in the mid-nineteenth century

From the 18th-century abolitionist motto 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' to the Civil Rights-era declaration 'I AM a Man', antiracism has engaged in a struggle for the recognition of black humanity.

It has done so, however, even as the very definition of the human has been called into question by the biological sciences.

While this conflict between liberal humanism and biological materialism animates debates in posthumanism and critical race studies today, 'Antebellum Posthuman' argues that it first emerged as a key question in the antebellum era.