Darwin's Legacy: The Evolution of Evolution

Catalog description

How has one of the most foundational ideas in modern biology shaped life far beyond the life sciences? This course offers a history of evolution with an emphasis on the concept's social and cultural impacts. It begins with an overview of nineteenth-century articulations of the change of species over time, then traces through the present the role that evolution has played in racialization and colonialism, the development of eugenics and related social policy, the production of binary sex and gender, and the naturalization of reproductive heteronormativity, among other topics. Students will learn principles of history of science and Science and Technology Studies (STS) as they engage closely with primary sources and critical readings of scientific texts.