The “Genomics and Philosophy of Race” conference aims to foster a dialogue about race, and, in particular, about relationships between ideas of race and modern genomics research. Four panels of experts and two keynote speakers will consider scientific, historical, sociological, and philosophical questions: Does contemporary genomics inform and shift our classifications, conceptualizations, and consciousness of race? To what extent is race real? Which inferences, if any, about the body, mind, and culture might race and related concepts (e.g., ancestry and ethnicity) ground? We invite students, researchers, and the public at large to join our conversation.

This event is free and open to the public.

AGENDA & PANELISTS:

Saturday, April 12, 2014 • 10am-6pm

10:00am Brief Opening Comments:
William A. Ladusaw, UC Santa Cruz, Humanities Dean
Nathaniel Deutsch, UCSC, IHR Director
Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, UCSC PI “Philosophy in a Multicultural Context”

10:15am Opening Keynote:
Sarah Richardson, Harvard: “Race in the Postgenomic Moment”

11:00am Biology Panel:
Bridget Algee-Hewitt, Stanford: “Forensic Casework and the Clustering of Human Craniofacial Variation”
Doc Edge, Stanford: “Multilocus Classification Accuracy and Polygenic Trait Differences”
Scott Lokey, UCSC: “Pharmacology in the genomic age: targeting drugs to (and keeping them away from) specific subpopulations”
Rasmus Nielsen, UC Berkeley: “On the genomic basis of the biological concept of race”
Noah Rosenberg, Stanford: “Properties of human population-genetic clustering”

1:00pm Lunch

2:00pm History Panel:
Nathaniel Deutsch, UCSC: “The ‘Jewish Question’ Revisited:  Genomics and Jewish Difference”
Lisa Gannett, St. Mary’s University: “The relevance (or not) of Dobzhansky and the evolutionary synthesis for contemporary population genomics”
Minghui Hu, UCSC: “The Eclipse of Darwinism and Its Chinese Accommodation”
Carlos López Beltrán, National Autonomous Univ of Mexico: “Mestizo Genomics. National, regional and ethnic figurations”
Paula Moya, Stanford: “Racial Realisms, or When Do We Describe, and When Do We ‘Do Race’?”

4:00pm Sociology Panel:
John Brown Childs, UCSC: “Geneologies of the Spirit: Spiraling Strands of Ethical Kinship Across Racialized Spaces”
Guillermo Delgado-P, UCSC: “Genomics and Isolation: the Case of Indigenous Peoples in Latin America”
Hiroshi Fukurai, UCSC: “Genomics and Race: Social, Political, Legal, & “Performative” Construction of Race”
Sandra Harvey, UCSC: “On the “HeLa Bomb”: Race and Gender Passing Narratives in Biotechnology”
Stephanie Montgomery, UCSC: “Nǚfàn: Gender, Criminality and the Prison in 1930s Qingdao”

Sunday, April 13, 2014 • 9am-12pm

9:00am Philosophy Panel:
Josh Glasgow, Sonoma State: “Biological-trait race without biological race”
James Griesemer, UC Davis: “Some Thoughts on Population Studies and the Ethics of Attention”
Jonathan Kaplan, Oregon State University: “Some Relationships Between Biological and Folk Races”
Roberta Millstein, UC Davis: “Thinking about populations and races in time”
Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, UCSC: “Are Races like Constellations?”

11:00am Closing Keynote:
Quayshawn Spencer, University of San Francisco: “Philosophy of Race Meets Population Genetics”

12:00pm Lunch

1:00-2:30pm Student Workshops:
Student workshops will be led by PhD students involved in the Philosophy in a Multicultural Context research cluster. Workshops will be held in Kresge Seminar Room 159.

Sponsors

This event is presented by the Philosophy in a Multicultural Context Research Cluster, and co-organized by the Institute for Humanities Research and Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther. Generous support provided by UCSC: UC Presidential Chair in Feminist Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, the UC Center for New Racial Studies, the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Kresge College, Cowell College, College Eight, College Nine, Merrill College, Departments of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Sociology. Additional support from: Center for Computational, Evolutionary, and Human Genomics, Stanford University, and Science and Technology Studies, UC Davis.

Directions & Parking

Click here for directions and parking for Kresge Town Hall, which is located in the northwest corner of the UCSC campus. For those driving, we recommend parking in the Core West Parking Structure (FREE parking on weekends). From Highway 17, exit Highway 1 North (toward Half Moon Bay) and make a slight right to follow the highway as it becomes Mission Street through town. Travel approximately one mile north to Bay Street in Santa Cruz. Turn right on Bay and proceed up the hill to UC Santa Cruz. Turn left on High Street (you want the west campus entrance, not the main entrance). Continue onto Empire Grade towards the west entrance. Turn right onto Heller Drive. The Core West Parking Structure entrance is on Heller Drive @ McLaughlin Drive (map). After parking, walk across Heller Drive and take the pedestrian bridge to Kresge College. The Kresge Town Hall will be located on your right, next to the Owl’s Nest Cafe. Accessible parking spaces are available behind the Town Hall in lot 142. Those walking or arriving by Metro bus or campus shuttle should get off at the Kresge College bus stop on Heller Drive and walk over the pedestrian bridge.