REMINDER - Symposium: "Nurturing Genetics", Leeds, 29 June-2 July 2014



NURTURING GENETICS: REFLECTIONS ON A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE
An international and interdisciplinary symposium
University of Leeds, 30 June-2 July 2014

To mark both the upcoming centenary of The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity (1915) by T. H. Morgan et al. and the completion of the Leeds-based Genetics Pedagogies Project, which has developed and trialled a de-Mendelized genetics curriculum, the Project team is hosting a three-day symposium on a century of change in and out of genetics, featuring talks from scholars across the disciplines.  In keeping with the ambitions of the project, gene-environment interaction and its complexities will be in the foreground throughout.

The symposium will take place at Devonshire Hall, near the University of Leeds campus, from the afternoon of Monday 30 June to the morning of Wednesday 2 July 2014.  The opening keynote address will be given by Prof. Evelyn Fox Keller (MIT).  The full programme is appended below.

All are welcome, though space is limited, and registration in advance is required.  To register, or for more information, please email the Project Fellow, Dr Annie Jamieson, at A.K.Jamieson@leeds.ac.uk .  The registration fee, which includes a wine reception, lunch, and tea/coffee throughout, is £30.00.  Affordable accommodation is available on-site.

We would be grateful if you could circulate this email to colleagues and students who may be interested.

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Monday 30th June

15:00            Registration and check-in to accommodation
17:00            Prof. Gregory Radick (HPS, Leeds): Welcome/Introduction
17:30            Prof. Evelyn Fox Keller (STS, MIT):  "From Gene Action to Reactive Genomes"
18:30-19:30      Reception (wine and canapés)

19:30 onwards   Dinner at local restaurant/s

Tuesday 1st July

Session 1: Eugenics and its Legacies

09:30            Dr. Chris Renwick (History, York): "Alexander Carr Saunders, Julian Huxley and Gene-Environment Interaction in Interwar British Sociology"
10:15            Dr. James Tabery (Philosophy, Utah): “Gene-Environment Interaction in the 21st Century: Its Rise, Its Fall, Its Rise?"

11:00           Coffee

Session 2:  Hybridizations: Genetics, Agriculture, Medicine

11:30            Dr. Helen Anne Curry (HPS, Cambridge): “Creation versus Conservation: Competing Strategies for the Management of Genetic Diversity in 20th-Century Agriculture”
12:15            Dr. Steve Sturdy (STS, Edinburgh): “Making Genomic Medicine: New Knowledge, New Politics”

13:00           Lunch

Session 3: Towards a Better Handling of Complexity in the Clinic

14:00            Prof. Gholson Lyon (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory): “Genetic Complexity and Neuropsychiatric Disorders”
14:45            Dr. Barbara Potrata (Leeds Institute of Health Sciences): “After the Diagnosis: The Impact of Genetic Diagnosis”

15:30           Coffee

Session 4: Towards a Better Handling of Complexity in the Classroom

16:00            Dr. Niklas Gericke (Environment and Life Sciences, Karlstad): “Epistemological Foundations for Genetics Education: The Issue of Conceptual Variation and Multiple Models”
16:45            Dr. Annie Jamieson (HPS, Leeds): “Leave the Monk in the Garden: Results of the Genetics Pedagogies Project”

17:30           End

19:30           Gala Conference Dinner

Wednesday 2nd July

09:30            Roundtable/Discussion sessions
11:00           Coffee/ End

Wed PM Optional excursion to the Yorkshire spa town of Ilkley for lunch and a talk plus, weather permitting,  brief walking tour related to Darwin’s visit there in 1859 (contact Annie Jamieson for further details)

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For more on the Genetics Pedagogies Project, see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/homepage/399/the_genetics_pedagogies_project

For more on the Leeds Centre for History and Philosophy of Science, see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/info/40006/centre_for_history_and_philosophy_of_science

Funding for this symposium, and for the Project, has been generously provided by the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, University of Cambridge, as part of its Uses and Abuses of Biology programme.  For more on the programme, see http://www.uabgrants.org/

And finally, for the anniversary minded: note that 2015 will also mark 150 years after Gregor Mendel gave two talks in Brünn on his remarkable experiments in plant hybridization.