| The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life': Racial Politics and Racial Science at the Origins of Darwinian Evolutionary Theory | 286 | The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life': Racial Politics and Racial Science at the Origins of Darwinian Evolutionary Theory | preservation-of-favoured-races | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/paul-mitchell.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>2 PM</em></p><p><strong>Paul Mitchell</strong>, UPenn, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology, He specializes on studies of the history of race and science in the 19th century in the United States and Europe; the history of anatomy, museums, and anthropology; genomic technologies, repatriation and ethics of human remains collections, evolutionary theory, bioarchaeology, and skeletal biology. His awards include being: a Library Company of Philadelphia Research Fellow to study the Samuel G. Morton Papers, 2020; an Affiliated Doctoral Fellow in Penn Program in Race, Science, and Society: Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery Project (2019-21); and, a recipient of the Provost's Graduate Academic Engagement Fellowship with the Netter Center, University of Pennsylvania (2019-2021). He currently teaches a course entitled: "Race, Science and Globalization" at Penn and has taught frequently in the Anthropology Department at UD.</p> | | | | | | | |
| As clover killed the fern': Darwinism and its Critics in Aotearoa New Zealand. | 287 | As clover killed the fern': Darwinism and its Critics in Aotearoa New Zealand. | as-clover-killed-the-fern | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/Geoff-bil.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>2:30 PM</em></p><p><strong>Geoffrey Bil</strong> is a historian of science and European empires, with specialization in nineteenth- and twentieth-century botany, anthropology, empire, and Indigenous history. Prior to joining the University of Delaware, he was a 2018-2019 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the New York Botanical Garden, and held predoctoral fellowships at the Newberry Library, University of Sussex, and Victoria University of Wellington. He received his PhD in History from the University of British Columbia (2018). His first book manuscript, "Indexing the Indigenous: Plants, Peoples and Empire," examines the history of Western engagements with Indigenous knowledge, with particular emphasis on the varied ways that Indigenous plant names have figured in imperial botany and anthropology. Dr. Bil's second book-length project, "Fields of Empire: Science, Ethnoscience and the Making of the American Century," tracks Western engagements with Indigenous knowledge under the emerging rubrics of ethnobotany and ethnoecology. In both books, he explores the complex histories underlying a science vital to the comprehension of biocultural diversity today.</p> | | | | | | | |
| Victorian Women Interpret Darwin | 269 | Victorian Women Interpret Darwin | victorian-women-interpret-darwin | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/barbara-gates.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>1 PM</em></p><p><strong>Barbara T. Gates </strong>is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at the University of Delaware. She is author of <em>Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories</em> (Princeton, 1988), <em>Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World</em> (Chicago, 1998), and numerous essays and reviews. Her edited works include <em>Critical Essays on Charlotte Bronte</em> (G.K. Hall, 1990), the <em>Journal of Emily Shore</em> (Virginia, 1991) and, with Ann B. Shteir, <em>Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science</em> (Wisconsin, 1997). Her most recent work is In <em>Nature's Name: An Anthology of Women's Writing and Illustration, 1780-1930</em> (Chicago, 2002).</p> | | | | | | | |
| Astonishing Plant Savages: Lessons from the organisms that bewildered Darwin | 271 | Astonishing Plant Savages: Lessons from the organisms that bewildered Darwin | astonishing-plant-savages | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/alenka-hr.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>1:30 PM</em></p><p><strong>Alenka Hlousek-Radojcic</strong> of Biological Sciences received the 2015 College of Arts and Sciences "Teacher of the Year Award." She has been leading the teaching team that consists of preceptors, faculty, teaching assistants, and laboratory support personnel for the integrated Introductory Biology and General Chemistry course sequence serving about five hundred students, mostly freshmen, per semester in the Dupont Interdisciplinary Science Learning Laboratories of the Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory. The team is developing and implementing interdisciplinary, inquiry based and collaborative curriculum that includes peer mentoring and teamwork. She has taught in the university honors program every semester for the past seven years. Besides general biology, she has taught courses in microbiology, medical microbiology, genetics, nutrition, and field courses. More recently her scholarly activities have focused on studying development of student critical thinking and graduate assistant teaching skills while her earlier work involved electron microscopy and molecular biology of plant plastids. In 2008, Alenka was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal. Prior to coming to the University of Delaware, she taught at the College of William and Mary (1997-2010) and University of Richmond. She has been an advisor to numerous environmental and science groups such as the Virginia Junior Academy of Sciences, a Biotechnology program in Chesterfield, Virginia, the StarNet High School Human Genome Sequencing program, the Adopt-A-Stream semiannual river clean-up activities along the Appomattox River for Petersburg - Hopewell area, Virginia, Friends of the Lower Appomattox River, Petersburg, Virginia. She has been the PI or co-PI of grants from the National Science Foundation, the Cameron Foundation, the American Society for Microbiology, and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Program.</p> | | | | | | | |
| "Lessons from Darwin and 'The Descent of Man': racism, science, and a bit of hope" | 273 | "Lessons from Darwin and 'The Descent of Man': racism, science, and a bit of hope" | lessons-from-darwin-and-the-descent-of-man | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/agustin-fuentes.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>3 PM - Sigma Xi National Speaker Keynote:</em></p><p><em>This will be an hour talk (including discussion)</em></p><p><strong>Agustín Fuentes</strong><strong> </strong>is an active public scientist, a well-known blogger and lecturer, and a writer and explorer for National Geographic. Fuentes' recent books include "Race, Monogamy, and other Lies They Told You: busting myths about human nature" (U of California), "Conversations on Human Nature(s)" (Routledge), "The Creative Spark: how imagination made humans exceptional" (Dutton), and "Why We Believe: evolution and the human way of being" (Yale).</p><p>Professor Fuentes is an anthropologist whose research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. From chasing monkeys in jungles and cities, to exploring the lives of our evolutionary ancestors, to examining human health, behavior, and diversity across the globe, Professor Fuentes is interested in both the big questions and the small details of what makes humans and our close relations tick. Earning his BA/BS in Anthropology and Zoology and his MA and PhD in Anthropology from UC Berkeley, he has conducted research across four continents, multiple species, and two-million years of human history. His current projects include exploring cooperation, creativity, and belief in human evolution, multispecies anthropologies, evolutionary theory and processes, and engaging race and racism. Fuentes was recently awarded the Inaugural Communication & Outreach Award from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the President's Award from the American Anthropological Association, and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Before coming to Princeton in 2020, he was the Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Fuentes is interested in both the big questions and the small details of what makes humans and our closest relatives tick. He has published more than 150 peer reviewed articles and chapters, authored or edited 19 books and a three-volume encyclopedia, and conducted research across four continents and two-million years of human history. His current explorations include the roles of creativity and imagination in human evolution, multispecies anthropology, evolutionary theory, and the structures of race and racism.<br></p> | | | | | | | |
| Darwin was an Ecotourist: Evolution, Conservation, and Tourism in the Enchanted Island | 283 | Darwin was an Ecotourist: Evolution, Conservation, and Tourism in the Enchanted Island | darwin-was-an-ecotourist | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/carla-guerrion-montero.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>7:00 PM</em></p><p><strong>Carla Guerrón Montero</strong> is a cultural and applied anthropologist trained in the United States and Latin America, and specializes in the anthropology of tourism, the anthropology of food, and the African diaspora. Her research focuses on the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, with special emphasis on those of African descent. She examines how the development of tourism as a major industry in this region influences state policy and grassroots initiatives. Her work includes investigations of globalization, race relations, gender relations and political changes in Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds joint appointments in Latin American and Iberian Studies, Africana Studies and Women and Gender Studies. She received a PhD degree in Cultural Anthropology and Latin American Studies from the University of Oregon; a Master of Arts degree in Applied Anthropology from Oregon State University (United States), and a Licenciatura degree in Socio-cultural Anthropology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Quito-Ecuador). Professor Guerrón Montero studies the complex and multiple meanings and representations of identity among marginalized populations in modern Latin American and Caribbean nation-states (Brazil, Ecuador, Grenada, and Panama). She is the author of <em>The Color of the Panela: Study of Afro-Ecuadorian Women in the Afro-Ecuadorian Andes</em> (Centro Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriano, 2000) and <em>From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions: Tourism, Cultural Heritage, and Afro-Antillean Identities in Panama</em> (University of Alabama Press, 2020). She is editor of<em> Careers in Applied Anthropology: Advice from Academics and Practicing Anthropologists</em> (NAPA, 2008) and co-editor of <em>Why the World Needs Anthropologists</em> (Routledge, 2020). She currently serves as Associate Editor of the<em> Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology</em> (JLACA). <br></p> | | | | | | | |
| Pseudo-scientific Seductions: Social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer in 1880s Japan | 284 | Pseudo-scientific Seductions: Social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer in 1880s Japan | pseudo-scientific-seductions | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/darryl-flaherty.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em></em><em>7:30 PM</em></p><p><strong>Darryl Flaherty</strong> specializes in Japanese history and East Asian social and political history, from the nineteenth century to the present. With a B.A. from the History program at The Johns Hopkins University, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in October 2001. His current work focuses on voluntary associations, particularly associations of lawyers, in modern Japanese politics. Other research interests include questions of law and social change in Japan, U.S. military bases in East Asia, and how public spaces express ideology. His most recent book is “Public Law, Private Practice: Politics, Profit, and the Legal Profession in Nineteenth Century Japan” (2013).</p> | | | | | | | |
| Charles Darwin: Then and Now | 289 | Charles Darwin: Then and Now | charles-darwin-then-and-now | <img alt="" src="/SpeakerSeriesFiles/pics/2121%20Darwin%20Day/johnvw.jpg" style="BORDER:0px solid;" /> | <p><em>8 PM Keynote:</em></p><p><em>This will be an hour long talk with discussion</em></p><p><strong>John van Wyhe</strong> is a historian of science at the National University of Singapore. He is the founder and Director of Darwin Online, published thirteen books and lectures and broadcasts around the world. His research has resolved some of the most intractable mysteries and debunked long-standing myths such as Darwin's delay, when Darwin received Wallace's evolution essay, whether Darwin was really the naturalist on the Beagle, where the legend of Darwin's finches comes from, whether Darwin lost his faith when his daughter Annie died, whether Wallace went to the Amazon to solve "the problem of the origin of species", the myth of Darwin's bodysnatchers and shown that T.H. Huxley was not known as "Darwin's bulldog" as thousands of publications have claimed for a century. Van Wyhe curated the restoration of Darwin's rooms at Christ's College and the Wallace exhibition at Science Centre Singapore. He has led several student expeditions to Indonesia to investigate the state of nature conservation. He is a member of the British Society for the History of Science, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and University Professorial Fellow of Charles Darwin University, etc. His book <em>Dispelling the Darkness</em> completely overturns the traditional story of Darwin and Wallace based on the most in-depth research programme ever undertaken on Wallace's voyage in Southeast Asia including editing Wallace Online, Wallace's voyage letters and notebooks to modern scholarly standards. As Darwin biographer Janet Browne has written, "the story of Wallace will never be the same again."</p> | | | | | | | |
