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Janet Brown to speak at ASU November
13
Janet Browne
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Appalachian State University’s celebration of the 200th
anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth continues on Thursday,
November 13th with a lecture by Janet Browne entitled “Commemorating
Darwin: 1809-2008: A History of Prior Darwin Celebrations.”
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled
for 8 pm in the Blue Ridge Ballroom of Plemmons Student Union,
on the campus of Appalachian State University, Boone.
Janet Browne serves as Aramont Professor of the History of
Science at Harvard University. Her interests range widely over
the history of the life sciences and natural history. After
a first degree in zoology she studied for a Ph.D. in the history
of science at Imperial College London, published as The Secular
Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography (1983).
Since then, she has specialized in reassessing Charles Darwin’s
work, first as associate editor of the early volumes of The
Correspondence of Charles Darwin, and more recently as author
of a major biographical study that integrated Darwin’s
science with his life and times. While it was framed as a biographical
study, the intention was to explore the ways in which scientific
knowledge was created, distributed and accepted, moving from
private to public, as reflected in the two-volume structure
of the work.
The biography was received generously both in the UK and USA,
and awarded several prizes, including the James Tait Black award
for non-fiction in 2004, the WH.Heinemann Prize from the Royal
Literary Society, and the Pfizer Prize from the History of Science
Society. A new member of the department, she was previously
based for many years at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History
of Medicine at University College London where she taught in
the MA, MSc and undergraduate programs in the history of science,
biology, and medicine.
She has been editor of the British Journal for the History
of Science and president of the British Society for the History
of Science. New courses to be developed in the next few years
focus on natural history specimens, including Bringing Nature
Indoors: Museums, Laboratories and the Field.
She is currently working on a visual and cultural history
of the gorilla. Lectures presented as part of the Darwin Bicentennial
Series are sponsored by the University Forum Committee, the
Division of Academic Affairs, University College, the Darwin
Bicentennial Celebration Committee, and the College of Arts
and Sciences. Additional support for the series has been provided
by the Joan Askew Vail Endowment and the Morgan Lecture Series
in the Sciences.
Additional details may be obtained at www.universityforum.appstate.edu
or by calling the university’s Office of Academic Affairs
at 828.262.7660.
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