Reclaiming Black Being and Future: Anesthetic Culture and the 1850 Daguerreotypes

Abstract

This essay is a brief analysis of the 1850 daguerreotypes of seven enslaved Black individuals through the lens of the work of Brent Dean Robbins in metabletics, objectivist epistemology, and anesthetic culture. It blends themes from Black history hermeneutics, the hermeneutics of human dignity, and ontological liberation frameworks to show how we can in the present reclaim Black embodiment and future for those who were violently denied it in the past.