NARRATIVE GENETICS SEMINAR: Thursday, February 25

The Social Life of DNA

6-8pm, Room 801, International Affairs Building
www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/international_affairs.html

The Social Life of DNA: Traditional and genetic 'root-seeking' and the implications of these practices for contemporary understandings of race and ethnicity, diaspora, ancestry, and memory. Alondra Nelson, Ph.D., Columbia University, Sociology. http://www.sociology.columbia.edu/fac-bios/nelson/faculty.html

Professor Nelson joined the Columbia faculty in July 2009 after teaching sociology and African American studies at Yale. She will talk about aspects of her current project, “Reconciliation Projects: Slavery, Memory and the Social Life of DNA,” which traces how claims about race and ancestry are marshaled together with genetic analysis in a range of social ventures, including family genealogy and ancestry, reparations politics and the formation of public and collective memory. “Bio Science: Genetic Ancestry Testing and the Pursuit of African Ancestry” (2008) is a recent publication of Nelson’s addressing the effects and implications of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. It is available on the Narrative Genetics Google site http://sites.google.com/site/narrativegenetics/ . Watch the site for other readings.

The Narrative Genetics seminar at Columbia is sponsored by ISERP http://iserp.columbia.edu/workshops/genetics. The seminar is open to faculty, students, and others in the Columbia University community and in the New York metropolitan area. Presenters discuss work in progress and welcome participation in the discussion.