« Julian Huxley and humankind as the sole trustee of the future of life »
Dans le cadre du séminaire « Histoire des sciences humaines et sociales », animé par Jacqueline Carroy, Wolf Feuerhahn, Rafael Mandressi, Andreas Mayer et Nathalie Richard
The talk focuses on aspects of the work and politics of Julian Huxley, particularly on his notion that with the arrival of modern humans in the course of evolution, a process that had hitherto been based on contingency could now be brought under rational control. Throughout his career, Huxley saw this grand aim endangered by two World Wars, fascism, racism, laissez-faire capitalism, and finally the destruction of natural resources not only necessary for physical survival but for the aesthetic and moral development of humans. His striving for that goal culminated during his position as first Director-General of UNESCO. Huxley and others promoted the integration of the ‘S’ for Science, and they pushed for an understanding of heritage that encompassed the natural as well as cultural aspects of world ecology.
- Vendredi 25 mai 2018, 14h-16h – Centre Alexandre-Koyré, salle de séminaire (5e étage), 27 rue Damesme, 75013 Paris
« Animal sounds against the noise of modernity and war: Julian Huxley and the preservation of the sonic world heritage »
Dans le cadre du séminaire « Matières premières du savoir. Histoire, usages et significations des collections scientifiques », animé par Andrée Bergeron et Charlotte Bigg
Focusing on the science and politics of Julian Huxley, I engage with the role of animal sounds in various media. Beginning with the phonograph recordings for soundbooks during his directorship of the London zoos (1935-42), I follow Huxley’s engagement for animal preservation as first Director-General of UNESCO to its culmination in the foundation of the WWF. At the center of my interest stands the question of animal voice: Who speaks for whom and to what purpose? How does sound work on disc, in animal and animated film, and in conservation comic?
- Mardi 5 juin 2018, 14h-17h – Centre Alexandre-Koyré, salle de séminaire (5e étage), 27 rue Damesme, 75013 Paris
« L’identité humaine est-elle génétique ? »
Débat autour de l’ouvrage de Marianne Sommer History Within: The Science, Culture, and Politics of Bones, Organisms, and Molecules (Chicago University Press, 2016)
Dans le cadre de la neuvième saison des Débats du Centre Alexandre-Koyré.
Focusing on the work of Henry Fairfield Osborn, Julian Sorell Huxley, and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza in paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology, and human population genetics, History Within asks how the sciences of human origins, whether through the museum, the zoo, or the genetics lab, have shaped our idea of what it means to be human. How have these biologically based histories influenced our ideas about and our institutions of nature, society, and culture? Today, personal genomics services such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com offer what once was science fiction: the ability to sequence and analyze an individual’s entire genetic code—promising, in some cases, facts about that individual’s ancestry that may have remained otherwise lost. Is it true, though, that who we are and where we come from is written into the sequence of our genomes?
- Mercredi 6 juin 2018, 10h-12h – Centre Alexandre-Koyré, salle de séminaire (5e étage), 27 rue Damesme, 75013 Paris
