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Subhadra Das, Critical Eugenics Researcher at the 果冻影院 Sarah Parker Remond Centre, speaks to researchers at 果冻影院 and beyond in conversations across the disciplinary divides. Together, they discuss, examine, critique and explode eugenic thinking. How are racism, ableism, sexism and class warfare embedded in our ways of thinking about and perceiving others? What can we do to challenge and dismantle those ideas and structures? As a university and a community of researchers: what does eugenics mean to us?
Episode 1听 |听听Episode 2听听触听听Episode 3听 |听听Episode 4听 |听听Episode 5听 |听听Episode 6
Episode 1: The stories we tell are powerful
It has often been argued that eugenicists were not real scientists, but almost all of their ideas were grounded in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scientific discourse. Science is a social and a socialised endeavour. Scientists are people, and their work is embodied in the social and historical contexts in which they live. In this episode, Subhadra speaks to science historians and communicators who are experts in exploring and uncovering the stories around our science. Together they look at how eugenic thinking can be perpetuated, but also confronted by the stories we tell.
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This conversation was recorded on听23rd March 2021
Guests:听Chiara Ambrosio, Associate Professor in History and Philosophy of Science in 果冻影院 Department of Science and Technology Studies, with a special focus on the history of art and science. Chiara is one of the co-founders of Muso at听, the improvised opera production inspired by objects from science museums.
Emily Dawson听is Associate Professor in Science Communication at 果冻影院 Science and Technology Studies. She was awarded The Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2020 for her work on the sociology of science and education, getting people to talk across the science/non-science disciplinary divide. Emily is the author of听, which was published by Routledge in 2019.
Rokia Ballo is part of the team who run听, a volunteer-led organization dedicated to training and enabling scientists and science communicators to employ equitable practise within their work. Science London have been nominated for the听
听is an award-winning writer, science journalist and broadcaster whose two most recent books tackle and challenge the inbuilt inequalities in the life sciences. In听, she looked at the science of gender, and in听, she looked at the science of race.
听and听听are two of the scholars mentioned in the conversation.
Episode 2: Curating Heads
This episode documents and commemorates a collaborative research project at 果冻影院, which brought together geneticists, historians, archaeologists and museum curators to consider how science mediates the dilemma of death. It was called Curating Heads and its scientific aims were to use the latest techniques in Ancient DNA analysis to sequence the genomes of two historic figures at 果冻影院: the philosopher Jeremy Bentham and the archaeologist, William Matthew Flinders Petrie. The exhibition that grew out of this research showcased this work and also critically examined the legacies of eugenics in genetics and archaeology. Join Subhadra and her guests as they reminisce about the project and reflect on the benefits of collaborative and interdisciplinary work.
This conversation was recorded on听30th March 2021
Guests:听Alice Stevenson was Curator of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology during the run of this project. She is now Associate Professor in Museum Studies at 果冻影院's Institute of Archaeology, and also the co-founder of a brilliant decolonial museum project called .
A historian and classicist by training, was Audience Development at the Petrie Museum where her research, public programmes and exhibitions are seminal milestones in the history of critical eugenics at 果冻影院. She is the author of , and she is now Education and Outreach Officer at the London School of Economics Library.听
Mark Thomas is Professor of Evolutionary Genetics in the Research Department of 果冻影院 Genetics, Evolution and Environment. He is also 果冻影院's ancient DNA researcher to the stars, having worked on aDNA projects on Richard III, and Charles Byrne (who was known as the Irish giant).
Tim Causer is Research Fellow at The Bentham Project based at 果冻影院 Laws, and as such one of 果冻影院's go-to Bentham experts. Together with Professor Philip Schofield, Tim is an editor of , a forthcoming collection of the works of Jeremy Bentham.
The rest of the team behind Curating Heads, and its accompanying exhibition What Does It Mean to Be Human? were: Dr听Elizabeth Dobson, Dr听Lucy van Dorp, Dr听Tom Booth and Dr听Selina Hurley. Nick Booth was the Curator of the Auto-icon of Jeremy Bentham at the time of the project.
Episode 3: The legacy of Cyril Burt听
Two of the fields where eugenic thinking had an enormous influence, and where some of its legacies continue to hold sway are Psychology and Education Studies. An influential figure in both those fields was a former 果冻影院 Professor of Psychology, Sir Cyril Burt. In this episode Subhadra and her guests wade through Burt鈥檚 legacy and reflect on how to confront and confound eugenic thinking in both these fields.
This conversation was recorded on 31st听March 2021
Guests:听If you believe what you read on , 听is just another millennial philosopher. By day, though, he is Senior Teaching Fellow in Philosophy and Education Studies at 果冻影院's Institute of Education, where his work encompasses critical theory, aspects of political philosophy, philosophy of mind, psychoanalysis, and developmental psychology.
Peter Fonagy is an award-winning psychologist and academic whose research centres on issues of early attachment relationships, social cognition, borderline personality disorder and violence. Among many other roles, he is Chief Executive of the in London and also Head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at 果冻影院.
Lasana Harris is Associate Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at 果冻影院. He is one of the brains behind the Unstereotype Experiment, which explored how increasing empathy in marketing professionals could increase creative and inclusive thinking, and his research at 果冻影院 examines the many different aspects of how we as humans perceive things and each other.
You can also listen to Linton Kwesi Johnson in conversation with Paul Gilory听on the SPRC podcast.
Episode 4: Confronting ableism in eugenics
Along with being inherently racist, eugenics was also an inherently ableist concern. In this episode Subhadra speaks to experts in the field of disability studies to explore the ways in which power delineates difference between people, and how this relates to the much broader structures of our society, as well as how we think and perceive of ourselves.
This conversation was recorded on听14th April 2021
Guests:听 is Lecturer in Education at the Institute of Education here at 果冻影院, and the editor of two books: , and the follow-up , which is due out in May 2021.
Nora Groce is Leonard Cheshire Professor of Disability and Inclusive Development at 果冻影院. A medical anthropologist, Nora works on issues of global health, international development and human rights, with a particular focus on global disability issues.听
Episode 5: Race and space
The places and spaces we inhabit profoundly affect our lives and how we live them in ways we need to think about more critically. At the launch of the project that is the subject of today's episode, Kamna Patel spoke to how people have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic by saying "It is not who we are and what we eat that will kill us, but where we live and where we work." Subhadra鈥檚 guests in this episode came together to write a curriculum to help students and researchers of the built environment be more mindful about the ways in which their discipline actively reinforces and reproduces racism and ableism.
This conversation was recorded on听21st April 2021
Guests:听Kamna Patel is Associate Professor at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit.
Yasminah Beebeejaun is Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Planning.
George Burridge is Senior Teaching and Learning Officer at the Bartlett Faculty Admissions Office.
You can follow The Bartlett's work confronting racism in the built environment through their听Inclusive Spaces series听and of course, you can download their听'Race' and Space: What is 'race' doing in a nice field like the built environment听(The Bartlett, 果冻影院 Faculty of the Built Environment, 2020) curriculum and read along for yourself. Other authors of the curriculum were听Solomon Zewolde,听Tania Sengupta听and听Catalina Ortiz.
听(LSE Department of Sociology, 2019)听by Huda Tayob and Suzanne Hall is also available to download from the London School of Economics website.
Episode 6: People, people, people
One of the ways in which eugenics became incorporated into mainstream society all around the world was through the birth control movement. Early twentieth-century birth control pioneers like Marie Stopes and Margaret Sanger were also ardent eugenicists, and their motives were bound up with imperial concerns about, as eugenicists saw it, the deterioration of the 'white race'. Their arguments were taken up in the cause of another imperialist concern, which was the growing population of non-white people in the colonies. In this episode, Subhadra and her guests consider how we can confront historical and contemporary eugenics practices in the continuing struggle for reproductive justice.
This conversation was recorded on听22nd April 2021
Guests:听听is a feminist historian who specialises in twentieth-century Southern African history. She is currently a Nottingham Research Fellow in the School of History at the University of Nottingham, and a Research Fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State. Her first book, was published by Routledge in 2016, and her current research project is .
听is a Lecturer in Geography and her research explores questions of race/gender, labour, neoliberalism, and reproductive rights and justice, with a particular focus on South Asia and its diasporas. She is the author of (Zed Books, 2012) and has published widely on race, gender, international development, women鈥檚 agency and rural labour movements.
Paige Patchin is a Lecturer in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies, and one of the founding lecturers at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre. Paige is a feminist geographer whose work looks at structures of power in biological, health, and earth sciences. Her research interests include infectious disease, race, and empire, genetics and epigenetics, reproductive health, and the Anthropocene. Her current book project looks at the Zika public health emergency between Puerto Rico and the United States.
If you want to learn more about Thomas Malthus, Robert J. Mayhew鈥檚 is as good a place as any to start.
Paul Erlich is an American biologist and Professor at Standford University, who for his 1968 book, The Population Bomb.
Dr听Linsey McGooey鈥檚 book is published by Verso Books.
encouraged voters in South Africa to reproductive justice.
You can find out more about 鈥檚 work from her website, and about听 from her staff page at The University of the Free State.听
