Jose Rizal in the World of German Anthropology

Jose Rizal's place in the history of Philippine anthropology is under-appreciated. The article tries to correct this by tracking Rizal's sojourn in Imperial Germany in 1886-87; his contacts with some of the most important late nineteenth-century German scientists; his participation in German learned societies; his collaborative work with German scholars in collecting anthropological artifacts; and his readings and attempts to translate works like Theodor Waitz' Anthropologie der Naturvolker (1858-71). The article situates all these in relation to Rizal's intellectual development and the history of German anthropology. It explores what Rizal found liberating in German anthropology in his time, and what his views were on issues like race and evolutionism at a time when Germany had began to drift towards the colonialist and anti-humanist ideas that would authorize National Socialism.