Gilder Lehrman Center 26th Annual Conference: Universities and the Histories of Race, Science, and Medicine

Building on the work of the Yale and Slavery Research Project, this conference will engage critical histories of universities and legacies of scientific racism. During the 1920s and 1930s, Yale faculty and administrators made foundational contributions to the American eugenics movement, primarily through the American Eugenics Society, then headquartered in New Haven. The legacies of this work continue to shape universities and their surrounding communities today. This interdisciplinary conference will explore broadly the ways that ideas of racial difference have been embedded within academic knowledge production and in its applications and harms to wider publics. The program highlights historical processes and contemporary concerns, as well as ongoing resistance and advocacy efforts. Free and open to the public, the conference aims to reach a diverse audience of faculty, students, teachers, and the community at large.