Upcoming Symposia
The Oulu Museum Of Art, Finland
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Both Geraldine Heng and Ibrahim X Kendi have identified the traveller and sociologist Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), as one of the early influential authors who picks up Aristotle’s thinking around climate zone theories with descriptions of character and intelligence. In Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1377), the author posits that Africans are prone to excitability, emotionalism and to dance whenever they hear a melody.[1] It is unclear if such language participated in medieval racist thought in the European continent before these texts and the works of Aristotle were re-introduced into European scholarly teaching in 13th century.[2] In this symposium, we investigate Khaldun as possible source material for cultural expressions and physiognomy, which later began to dominate the European social imaginary? As well, the texts of Ibn Khaldun, while they are classic for scholars in sociology and cultural studies, also carry potential to raise critical inquiry from researchers of human genetics and medical engineering.