Special invitation to attend 50th Annual Throckmorton Lecture, Feb. 25
Open gallery
Dear campus community,
The History Department invites you to attend its 50th Annual Throckmorton Lecture at 3:30 on Monday, February 25 in the Council Chamber, Templeton Campus Center. We are pleased and delighted to welcome Dr. Philippa Levine, Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities and co-director of the British Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin as this year’s guest lecturer. Dr. Levine will give a lecture entitled “Improving the Human Race One Gene at a Time: The Curious History of Eugenics in the Twentieth Century.”
Dr. Levine is the Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities and co-director of the British Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin.
The early twenties century science of eugenics was a remarkable transnational phenomenon that influenced social and scientific policy across the political spectrum and in a bewildering variety of locations around the globe. The prospect of connecting biology and social policy proved seductive in many political arenas, and this talk will offer a glimpse of some of those many settings. Eugenics speaks to questions of race, class, gender and sex, evolution, governance, nationalism, disability, and the social implications of science. In the age of the human genome project, stem cell research and new reproductive technologies, the history of eugenics has much to teach us about the relationship between scientific research, technology, and human ethical decision-making.
The Throckmorton lecture was established in 1963 to commemorate the life and work of Arthur L. Throckmorton, a professor of history at Lewis & Clark who died unexpectedly in 1962. Each year the series brings a distinguished historian to campus to lecture and to meet with faculty and students.
Free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there!
