Legacies of Eugenics in New England Conference: Part 3

Date: 

Tuesday, November 16, 2021, 12:30pm to 4:00pm

Location: 

Virtual
Part 3 - November 16, 2021, 12.30pm-4.00pm EST - REGISTER

Legacies of Eugenics in New England – Session 3 ‘Eugenic Futures’

This session will be taking forward the four thematic threads from the conference's two previous sessions (eugenics at Harvard and Yale, the Eugenics Survey and Vermont apology, and eugenics and the Deaf community) – see recording of the first session ‘Eugenic Legacies’ (22nd September), or recording of the second session ‘Eugenic Presents’ (19th October) - to look at our 'Eugenic Futures.' The session will bring together leading scholars, activists, politicians and artists, to explore eugenic threats to our futures (whether posed through gene-editing technologies, environmental crises, backlashes to shifting demographics, tensions around school curriculums, etc.), and what it is that we can do to prepare for or disrupt eugenic trajectories. The session will conclude by asking what specific role and responsibility New England has in confronting eugenics in the future.

 12.30pm-12.40pm Welcome and New England land acknowledgment

Presenter: Nora Groce (University College London)

12.40pm-12.50pm CRISPR: What lies in store?

Presenter: Neal Baer (Harvard University)

12.50pm-1pm Gene-editing with CRISPR, and the Deaf community

Presenter: Teresa Blankmeyer Burke (Gallaudet University)

1pm - 1.40pm The future of gene editing and genomics

Moderator: Natalie Kofler (Scientific Citizenship Initiative at Harvard University)

A quick 2 min intro from each panellist and then moderated discussion

Panellist: Joe Stramondo (San Diego State University) – ‘disability, eugenics,…’

Panellist: Sara Hendren (Olin College of Engineering) – ‘designing spaces and systems not people’

Panellist: Keolu Fox (UC San Diego) – ‘indigenous agency in genomics’

 1.40pm-2.25pm Dismantling Vermont Eugenics: Towards an Anti-Eugenics Future

Moderator: Charlene Galarneau (Harvard University)

Opening thoughts by each panellist, followed by roundtable discussion

Panellist: Judy Dow (Executive Director of Gedakina, Educator and Artist)

Panellist: Representative Tiffany Bluemle (Vermont General Assembly)

Panellist: Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Vermont General Assembly)

2.25pm-2.35pm White Fright: Eugenics meets population decline and climate change

Presenter: Anne Hendrixson (Collective Power for Reproductive Justice)

2.35pm-3.05pm Humans, nature, and eugenics

Moderator: Natalie Kofler (Scientific Citizenship Initiative at Harvard University)

3-5min presentation each

Panellist: Riley Taitingfong (Harvard University) – ‘settler/colonialism’

Panellist: Tallulah Keeley-Leclaire (Yale University) – ‘Yale’

Panellist: Natalie Kofler (Harvard University) – ‘Purity, invasive species rhetoric, and genetics’

Panellists: Students of the Scientific Citizenship Initiative (Harvard University) – ‘a new environmental ethic for the future’

 3.05-3.20pm Eugenics in education, and empowering the next generation

Conversation looking at eugenics in education

Moderator: Milton Reynolds (Milton Reynolds Consultancy)

Panellist: Daniel Martinez HoSang (Yale University)

3.20-4pm Concluding panel

Panellists and moderators from the conference are invited back for a roundtable discussion taking selected questions from the session, and concluding with a look at the role and responsibility of New England in confronting eugenics in our future

Panellists: Neal Baer, Representative Tiffany Bluemle, Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, Judy Dow, Charlene Galarneau, Anne Hendrixson, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and Milton Reynolds