Talks
September 23, 2011
DISCUSSION OF DEBORAH VALENZE'S MILK: A LOCAL AND GLOBAL HISTORY
(Yale Unversity Press, 2011)
Deborah Valenze (Columbia) Daniel Kevles (Yale) and Eugenia Lean (Columbia)
Time: 10:30 AM to 12 PM
Location: 411 Fayerweather Hall
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October 28, 2011
THE VOYAGE OF THE ZACA, 1934-35: COLONIAL RACE MIXING IN THE PACIFIC AND THE CRISIS IN US PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Warwick Anderson (University of Sydney)
Time: 10:30 AM to 12 PM
Location: 411 Fayerweather Hall
In 1934-35, the physical anthropologist Harry L. Shapiro (AMNH and Columbia) voyaged in the
South Seas on the Zaca, measuring mixed-race islanders, including the descendants of the Bounty
mutineers on Pitcairn Island. His research in Polynesian hybridity reflects the growing cultural
and scientific investment of the United States in the Pacific during this period. Shapiro's
oceanic adventures and intimate encounters prompted him to discount typological speculation and
emphasize instead the liberal Boasian program in physical anthropology, giving him the
confidence to refigure his evaluations of racial difference. The seaborne investigatory
enterprise came to influence U.S. racial thought, adding impetus to the condemnation of racism
in science. On his return from the South Seas, Shapiro tried to get his fellow physical
anthropologists to issue a manifesto opposing the harnessing of their science to racial
discrimination and prejudice.
February 10, 2012
ROUNDTABLE: THE COLUMBIA-BARNARD CURRICULUM AND THE FUTURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CITIZENSHIP
Ruth DeFries, Stuart Firestein, William Leach, Stephenie Pfirman, Jonathan Schorsch
Time: 10:30 AM to 12 PM
Location: 411 Fayerweather Hall
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March 9, 2012
AROUND-THE-WORLD TRAVEL AND THE HISTORY OF PLANETARY CONSCIOUSNESS
Joyce Chaplin (Harvard)
Time: 10:30 AM to 12 PM
Location: 411 Fayerweather Hall
March 23, 2012
THE KING OF SPICES: MAPPING RIGHTS TO GRAINS OF PARADISE FROM CHAUCER TO HERBAL VIAGRA
Abena Osseo-Asare (U.C. Berkeley)
Time: 10:30 AM to 12 PM
Location: 411 Fayerweather Hall
May 11, 2011
TERRITORY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: THE POLITICS AND GEOGRAPHY OF RADIO-NAVIGATION FROM WORLD WAR I TO GPS
William Rankin (Yale)
Time: 10:30 AM to 12 PM
Location: 411 Fayerweather Hall