Mainz, 17 August 2026 – In her newly published global micro-study, historian Malin Wilckens addresses the question of which practices led to the anthropological theories of ‘race’ in comparative anatomy in Europe and the United States during the transition from the 18th to the 19th century.
The ‘racial’ theories of the long 19th century established a global order of humanity, which can only be fully understood when the processes of collecting and comparing human skulls are related to one another and examined from a transnational perspective.
In her global-historical and history-of-science-oriented praxeological study of scientific racism, Malin S. Wilckens examines the collection and comparison of human skulls by three key comparative anatomists: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Samuel George Morton, and Paul Broca.
In doing so, a certain contingency of ‘racial’ theories becomes apparent – the global collection of skulls influenced comparison and, consequently, classification. The skull, as the seat of the brain, became the decisive criterion of differentiation in natural history classifications. Various practices of knowledge promoted the “success” of ‘racial’ theories: the late-Enlightenment colonial practice of craniological research transitioned into imperial and subsequently national knowledge production, which continues to influence modern forms of racism.
While anatomists and anthropologists initially used the concept of ‘race’ for continental human populations, in the 19th century it was increasingly applied to regional groups and for intra-continental differentiation. Both focal points were closely linked to colonial-imperial interpretations and conditioned an asymmetrical relationship between Central Europe and the United States and other parts of the world.
About the Author
Following her studies in history and politics, Dr. Malin Wilckens completed her doctorate as a fellow of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology. She received research fellowships in Stanford, Washington, and London. Since November 2023, she has been a research associate at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz. In 2025, she was awarded the Johannes Zilkens Dissertation Prize by the Studienstiftung for her dissertation, “Skull Comparisons and the Order of the World – Racialisation in Science (1780–1880)”, which forms the basis of the book.
New Publication “Collecting, Measuring, Comparing: Skulls, ‘Race’, and the Order of the World in German, US-American, and French Anthropology (1780–1880)”
Critical Studies in History (Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft), Volume 254, 1st edition 2026, 384 pages, hardcover, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ISBN: 978-3-525-31777-8.
About the IEG
The IEG is an independent, non-university research institute in Mainz, whose mission is the scientific research of European history. It fulfills this task through individual and collaborative projects of its researchers as well as those of national and international research fellows. The institute has been a member of the Leibniz Association since 2012.
Contact:
Press: Dr. Christian Eilers, +49 (0)6131 39 33635, eilers@ieg-mainz.de
