Genetic Past and Genomic Future: lecture series at UNCG

Many thanks to Dr. Carlina DeLaCova of the University of North Carolina Greensboro for letting me know about the exciting 2010-2011 Harriet Elliott Lecture Series taking place this week at UNCG. John Hawks will be delivering the keynote address.

Dear Colleagues and Community,


As hosts of the 2010-2011 Harriet Elliott Lecture Series, the Department of Anthropology at UNCG is pleased to announce the upcoming keynote address and panel discussion on the theme, “Our Genetic Past and Genomic Future: Connecting the Science of Human Origins to Contemporary Life.” This year’s events will be held on Wednesday, March 23, 2011.

In preparation for the event, we would like to invite you to visit the event’s blog: http://harrietelliottuncg.wordpress.com/. The blog will provide an opportunity to engage with the events’ themes, generate questions to be posed to our panelists and keynote speaker, and archive interesting news pieces related to the theme.

Please find below our participant’s bios and a summary of the day’s events. For more information, visit: http://www.uncg.edu/aas/lectureseries/

Panel Discussion (3-5 pm in the EUC Auditorium)
The panel will focus on the intersection between the scientific study of human origins, evolution, and variability and its everyday applications--that is, how it affects people’s lives in terms of biomedical practice, conceptions of difference and risk, and social identity. Moderated by Dr. Cheryl Logan (UNCG History and Psychology), the panel will bring together three distinguished scholars:

Lee Baker (Duke University) - Dean of Academic Affairs, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, and Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African and African American Studies. Dr. Baker is the author of From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954 (University of California Press, 1998), Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture (Duke University Press, 2010), and editor of Life In America: Identity and Everyday Experience (Blackwell Publishing, 2003).

Alondra Nelson (Columbia University) - Associate Professor of Sociology. Dr. Nelson holds an appointment at Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender and is the author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party's Politics of Health and Race (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and co-editor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of Race, DNA and History (Rutgers University Press, 2011).

Fatimah Jackson (UNC Chapel Hill) Professor of Biological Anthropology and Director of the Institute of African-American Research. Dr. Jackson’s research has focused human metabolic and genomic effects of exposure to plant allelochemicals, genomic models of biological diversity in contemporary and historic African peoples, and bioanthropological perspectives on human disease (especially infectious diseases). In 2000, she cofounded the first human DNA bank on the African continent.


Harriet Elliott Keynote Address (7-9 pm in the Meade Auditorium, 101 Sullivan)
“Neandertime: Deciphering the Secrets of Ancient Genomes”
Following the panel discussion, the invited talk will address current debates within the field of anthropology around the topic of human genetic evolution.

John Hawks (University of Wisconsin Madison) - Associate Professor of Anthropology. He is well known within the field of biological anthropology for his public engagement with current topics of research, including his own blog (http://johnhawks.net/weblog).

Please note that in between the panel discussion and featured talk there will be a reception held from 5-6:30 pm in the Kirkland Room of the EUC.

For a map of UNCG’s campus, which includes the parking garages for both events, please see: http://www.uncg.edu/online_map/.

We look forward to the exciting debates this year’s lecture series will foster and hope that you will join us in the on-going discussions. Finally, we are attaching a PDF of the poster announcing the events.


Thank you very much.

Sincerely,


Carlina de la Cova

Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Anthropology Department