This group examines the history of the evolutionary synthesis of genetics and natural selection, and its impact upon agriculture, and theories of race and eugenics.
Speaker Robert Wegner Researcher, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC/Fiocruz) Professor, Graduate Program in History of Sciences and Health, Fiocruz
Presentation Title and abstract will be announced soon.
About Robert
Robert Wegner holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and is a researcher at the Department of Research in History of Sciences and Health at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC/Fiocruz), where he also teaches in the Graduate Program in History of Sciences and Health.
His research focuses on intellectual history and the history of science in Brazil, particularly debates concerning race and eugenics, as well as Brazilian social thought and the relationships between history, culture, and scientific thought.
Further details about the presentation will be announced soon.
Friday, October 16, 2026, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EDT
Speaker Alan Sokal Professor of Mathematics, University College London (UCL) Professor Emeritus of Physics, New York University (NYU)
Presentation “When Science and Politics Collide: Lysenkoism and Communist Scientists in Britain, France and Italy”
The decade-and-a-half conflict in the Soviet Union between Lysenkoists and classical geneticists culminated in 1948, when genetics was officially declared to be a bourgeois pseudoscience. How did Communist and fellow-traveler scientists in the West react to this potential conflict between their scientific ethos and their political commitments?
The presentation will examine the variety of responses, focusing particularly on Britain, where the Communist Party was small but included several prominent scientists, notably J.B.S. Haldane and J.D. Bernal, as well as France and Italy, which had the largest Communist parties in Western Europe.
About Alan
Alan Sokal is Professor of Mathematics at University College London and Professor Emeritus of Physics at New York University. His research has included statistical mechanics, quantum field theory, and mathematical physics, alongside extensive work on questions concerning science, philosophy, culture, and the relationship between science and ideology. He is also the co-author, with Jean Bricmont, of Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, and the author of Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture.
The lecture will be delivered in English.
Past Meetings
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Speaker: Dr. Eyal Weinberg (Florida, US) Historian of modern Latin America, with a focus on Brazil Assistant Professor, Florida Atlantic University
Presentation: "Medical Ethics, Health Struggles, and Family Planning in Cold War Brazil"
["Ética Médica, Lutas pela Saúde e Planejamento Familiar no Brasil durante a Guerra Fria"].
2- Edméia de Almeida Cardoso Coelho, Maria de Fátima Gomes de Lucena, and Ana Tereza de Medeiros Silva, “O planejamento familiar no Brasil no contexto das políticas públicas de saúde: determinantes históricos,” Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP, 34:1 (2000), pp. 37–44. https://www.scielo.br/j/reeusp/a/GrTf3vFznTHzrbmnDHQHtDP
Explore Previous Works: To learn more about Dr. Weinberg, please click here.
Join us for this engaging discussion!
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Speaker: M.Sc. Lucas Carvalho do Nascimento Nogueira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). PhD student in the Graduate Program in History of Sciences and Health, Fiocruz — Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC). Professor at the Department of Education of the State of Minas Gerais.
Presentation: "Aprenda a planejar a sua família, o nascimento dos bons: controle populacional no Brasil, 1961-1993.” [“Learning Family Planning, Birthing the Better: Population Control in Brazil, 1961-1993.”].
2- RAMSDEN, Edmund. Confronting the Stigma of Eugenics: Genetics, Demography and the Problems of Population: Social Studies of Science, December 2009, Vol. 39, No. 6 (December 2009), pp. 853-884. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20506743/
4- BHERING, Marcos Jungmann Controle de natalidade no Brasil: um estudo sobre o Centro de Pesquisas e Assistência Integral à Mulher e à Criança (1975-1994). Tese (Doutorado em História das Ciências e da Saúde) – Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, 2014. 202 f. Cap 04 – páginas, 129-156. https://ppghcs.coc.fiocruz.br/images/dissertacoes/teste/tese_marcos_bher...
Explore Previous Works: To learn more about M.Sc. Nogueira, please click here.
The presentation will be in Portuguese.
Join us for this engaging discussion!
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Dr. Leonardo Dallacqua de Carvalho (Brazil) Graduate Program in History at State University of Maranhão - UEMA, Brazil. PhD in History of Sciences at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (2019).
Presentation: “Eugenics e (Hi)story-play-spaces: jogos eletrônicos e eugenia nas narrativas históricas". [Eugenics and (Hi)story-play-spaces: Electronic Games and Eugenics in Historical Narratives].
Explore Previous Works: To learn more about Dr. Carvalho, please click here.
Join us for this engaging discussion!
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Speaker: Dr. Mércio Pereira Gomes (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Anthropologist, Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Brazil.
Former President of Funai (National Indigenous People Foundation) from 2003 to 2007.
Presentation: “Genética: a última fronteira para se entender os povos indígenas e sua mestiçagem no Brasil".
[Genetics: The Final Frontier in Understanding Indigenous Peoples and Their Miscegenation in Brazil].”
Suggested Readings:
1—Gomes, M. P. (2019). O Brasil Inevitável: Ética, Mestiçagem e Borogodó. Topbooks. Read Book.
2—Gomes, M. P. (2012). Índios no Brasil. Contexto. Read Book.
Explore Previous Works: To learn more about Dr. Gomes, please click here.
Join us for this engaging discussion!
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Speaker: Dr. Ilana Löwy (Paris, France) Emerita Senior Research Fellow at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research.
Presentation: “Zika e a questão complexa do aborto 'eugênico' por indicação fetal. [Zika and the tangled issue of an 'eugenic' abortion for fetal indication].”
New book by the author: Löwy, I. (2024). Viruses and Reproductive Injustice. Johns Hopkins University Press. Please access more information about the book here.
Suggested Readings:
1—Löwy, I. (2020). Abortion for fetal anomaly: how to speak about a difficult topic. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 36. Read Article.
2—Paul, D. Β., & Löwy, I. (2018). On Objectivity in Prenatal Genetic Care. OBM Genetics, 2(2), 1–1. Read Article.
3—Löwy, I. (2024). Chapter Two (Fetuses: Women, Doctors, and the Law) from 'Viruses and Reproductive Injustice: Zika in Brazil'. Johns Hopkins University Press. (Attached on our website).
Explore Previous Works: To learn more about Dr. Löwy, please click here.
Join us for this engaging discussion!
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Speaker: M.Sc. Alexandre Verçosa Greco (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Master's graduate (2023) from the Graduate Program in History of Sciences and Health at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz. Professor at the Department of Education of the State of Rio de Janeiro, SEEDUC/RJ.
Presentation: “O médico Mário Victor de Assis Pacheco no debate sobre o controle populacional (1968-1985)” [Doctor Mário Victor de Assis Pacheco in the debate on population control (1968-1985)].
Explore Previous Works: To learn more about Mr. Greco, please click here to access his Master's thesis.
Join us for this engaging discussion!
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Speakers: Dr. Rosanna Dent New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Jersey, United States.
Reading: “Human enhancement, ectogenesis and immortality: Russian cosmism and the archaeology of the transhumanism” (click here).
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Guests: Ana Carolina Vimieiro Gomes, Professor of History of Sciences at the Department of History at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Rosanna Dent, Assistant Professor, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Presentation: “Explorando a história oral na história da genética humana no Brasil.”
Reading: soon.
Previous works: Please click here (Gomes) e and here (Dent).
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Guest: Vedran Duančić, PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy
Presentation: “Lysenkoism in Socialist Yugoslavia: Science and Politics across the Iron Curtain”
Title of the presentation: "Allies and Obstacles: Disability Activism and Parents of Children with Disabilities"
Reading: Sometimes Allies: Parent-Led Disability Organizations and Social Movements. Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ) Vol. 39 No. 1 (2019): Winter 2019.
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Title of the presentation: "As contribuições de Nettie Maria Stevens para a teoria cromossômica: estudos sobre a determinação de sexo." Ana Paula Morais, PhD, Universidade Nove de Julho - Uninove, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
William deJong-Lambert is a Professor of History at Bronx Community College, CUNY who will be spending the spring semester 2025 teaching at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul as a Fulbright scholar while researching a biography of Theodosius Dobzhansky.
Paula Habib
Paula Habib is a Professor of History at the Federal University Fluminense (UFF/Brazil). Habib´s research specializes in history of agriculture, genetics, history of biology and eugenics during the first decades of the 20 th century. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Science and Health by Oswaldo Cruz Foundation/Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Marcelo Lima Loreto
Marcelo Lima Loreto is a science journalist and historian of science who writes for Folha de S.Paulo and other media outlets. He was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Institute of Latin American Studies (2022–2023) and a Research Fellow at the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (2021–2022). He received his Ph.D. in the History of Science from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2019. His work examines the history of evolution, heredity, and the life sciences in Brazil. Dissertation here: http://bibcegos.nce.ufrj.br/hcte/docs/teses/2019/marcelo_lima_loreto.pdf
Sofia Nestrovski
Sofia Nestrovski holds an M.A. in Literary Theory from the University of São Paulo and is currently a PhD candidate there, researching “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”, by Charles Darwin. She has translated Darwin’s book on earthworms into Portuguese and is the co-author, with Leda Cartum, of “As vinte mil léguas de Charles Darwin” (Editora Fósforo/Edições Sesc, 2022), based on their podcast “Vinte mil léguas” (a Jabuti Award semifinalist), bridging literary studies and the history of science.
