Lecture
From Eugenics to Genetics: The Role of Ancient DNA in Racist Appropriations of Classical Antiquity
Event Summary
IMAGE: Eugenics Society Exhibit (1930s). Image from Wellcome Library via Wikimedia Commons.
This talk looks at some of the ways that research on ancient DNA has encouraged the treatment of race as both essential and biological. The danger of this trend is underlined by placing such research – as well as its appropriations by the far right – within the context of a broader resurgence of race science over the past ten years. Organized by the Ancient Greek Philosophy of Race and Ethnicity project at the Neubauer Collegium.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Denise Eileen McCoskey is Professor of Classics and affiliate in Black World Studies at Miami University (Ohio). She is the author of Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy and is currently working on a project examining the influence of eugenics on early 20th-century American classical scholarship.
Reception to follow.