Sublime

Shortly before the Hammonds’ arrival the building’s East Portico had been the scene of an assassination attempt against President Andrew Jackson. The assailant was named Richard Lawrence, who believed himself to be England’s long-dead King Richard III and claimed that Jackson had interfered with the delivery of payments long owed to him by the colo

Marlowe stands close and lights it for him, smelling of hair cream and something else as well. The faintest whiff of brimstone. Marlowe enjoys a different kind of immortality, achieved by different means. No magic acorns or slumbering under trees. He sold his soul on the dotted line, joined an exclusive members’ club. Eternal life. But not eternal

But even as Camper lost scholarly standing in continental Europe, scientific racists in Britain and the United States such as Robert Knox, J. C. Nott, and G. R. Gliddon went on reproducing his images as irrefutable proof of a white supremacy that Camper himself had never embraced.

Shortly before the Hammonds’ arrival the building’s East Portico had been the scene of an assassination attempt against President Andrew Jackson. The assailant was named Richard Lawrence, who believed himself to be England’s long-dead King Richard III and claimed that Jackson had interfered with the delivery of payments long owed to him by the colo

And although he specifically denied any hierarchical intent, Hunter’s imagery inspired the obstetrician Charles White (1728–1813) to think about race as physical appearance.