Research Seminar April 9th: Marianne Sommer - Evolution in Action: Julian Huxley's Political Biology at London Zoo

In the lecture, I engage with a stage in Julian Huxley’s life and career to illustrate processes through which knowledge is performed, becomes visible, tangible, and embodied. Julian Huxley was a pioneer of a new kind of research on animal behavior, a key figure in the process of integrating biological fields under Darwinism, and a prime mover in the attempt to further the public understanding of the importance of science for democracy, peace, and progress. These aspects of Huxley’s work converged in his engagement as secretary of the London zoos (1935-42). From the beginning of his career, Huxley aimed at establishing and understanding evolutionary and human progress. He developed the thesis that only humans had the potential for further progressive development. They were responsible for the fate of all living beings. Through innovations at the zoo and its publicity, the public should learn this lesson, be able to read it from the bodies of animals and from their own. This kind of knowledge of the past would point the way into a bright future.