Of Skulls and Speech: James Cowles Prichard and the “Science of Races”

This article provides an analysis of the ethnological works of James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848), who devoted his scholarly life to tracing the origins of different “races” and explaining the perceived physical differences between them. By contextualizing Prichard’s work within the broader landscape of knowledge production through the reconstruction of a citation network, his pivotal role in mediating between physiological and philological knowledge becomes evident. Through an analysis of Prichard’s work, focusing on the intersections between physiological and philological knowledge, or between taxonomical and historical-genealogical modes of classification, this article aims to illuminate the complexities and tensions inherent in the emergent racial discourse of the early nineteenth century.