THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED
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Talk Title: Christianity, Race, Slavery: New Considerations for the Life Sciences
Location: Women's Faculty Club, UC Berkeley
Date: April 22, 2020
Time: 12pm - 1:30pm
About the Talk:
The idea that so-called races reflect inherent biological differences between social groups has been a prominent aspect of Western thought since at least the Enlightenment. While there have been moments of refuting this way of thinking, fixed biological conceptions of race haunt new genetic technologies, where race is thought to be measurable at the molecular level. Keel argues that the resilience of this naturalized understanding of race may stem less from overtly political motives on the part of scientists and more from our inherited theological traditions that predate the Enlightenment, were in play during transatlantic slavery, and continue to shape the intellectual horizon of scientific reasoning.
This talk is part of the Othering & Belonging Institute's Research to Impact series as well as UC Berkeley's 400 Years of Resistance to Slavery and Injustice initiative.
About the Speaker:
Terence Keel is an associate professor with a split appointment in the Department of African American Studies, and the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics. He is a critical race theorist, historian of science, and scholar of religion who has written widely about American biomedical science, religion, law, and modern thought. His first book, Divine Variations explained how Christian thought made possible the development of the race concept in Euro-American science. Keel is an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and serves on the steering committee of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute. He is also a senior advisor to the Goldin Institute, a Chicago based non-profit organization that advocates globally for grassroots leadership, conflict resolution, poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability.
Note: This event is wheelchair accessible. To request ASL/captioning, or other accessibility services contact takiyah.franklin@berkeley.edu. Requests made within three weeks of the event may be difficult to arrange depending on the availability of the of service provider.
Kindly refrain from wearing scented products.