
60 episodes

Speaking of Race Speaking of Race
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- Society & Culture
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4.8 • 36 Ratings
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How did race become such a flash point in modern society, and why does it remain contentious in our genomic age?
In this first-of-its-kind trans-disciplinary podcast, biological anthropologist Jim Bindon joins with cultural anthropologist Lesley Jo Weaver and historian of science Erik L. Peterson to explore our species centuries' long debates over how to define biological and behavioral difference, and why it continues to matter today.
See more about us at: http://speakingofrace.ua.edu/
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A Deeper Sickness
In this episode we interview Erik Peterson about the book he recently released with fellow historian, Margaret Peacock, about the crazy pandemic year of 2020. Race features prominently throughout!
Some resources:
The website that accompanies the book: https://adhc.lib.ua.edu/pandemicbook/
The book: https://www.amazon.com/Deeper-Sickness-Journal-America-Pandemic/dp/0807040290 -
Top 5 Scientific Racisms
In this episode we respond to a listener question about our top 5 examples of scientific racism. Unfortunately, in the five years of this podcast, we’ve only discussed two of these people/topics, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to get up to speed. The transcript includes references and resources for these topics: http://speakingofrace.ua.edu/uploads/1/1/0/5/110557873/transcript.pdf
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Great is whose sin?
At least since Stephen Jay Gould's 1981 classic Mismeasure of Man, Darwin has been characterized as a kindly anti-racist while Morton has been characterized as a founding father of scientific racism. We argue that the two men were much more alike in their views on both slavery and race.
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Racism Not Race
In this episode, we talk with evolutionary biologist Joe Graves and biological anthropologist Alan Goodman about their roles as thought leaders on public education around race, racism, and science (https://cup.columbia.edu/book/racism-not-race/9780231200660). They tell us about how they came to collaborate on their new book Racism not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, which tackles many of these issues. As promised, here are the links to the Wikipedia pages for Joe (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_L._Graves_Jr.&oldid=1051037675) and for Alan (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alan_H._Goodman&oldid=1063696168) so you can see some of their many accomplishments. Also as promised in the episode, here is Joe’s paper telling why Lewontin’s fallacy isn’t a fallacy, a key argument against biological races in humans (http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Graves/). If you want more, you’ll have to listen to the episode and buy the book!
Here's a transcript of the episode: http://speakingofrace.ua.edu/uploads/1/1/0/5/110557873/transcript.pdf -
Eugenics, part 1
Eugenics: the science and practice of promoting “good breeding” among humans. An early-20th-century movement so steeped in white supremacy that even some white people don’t count, much less people of color. Here we begin a series with more than you ever wanted to know about the sinister history of eugenics, including mass sterilization campaigns in the US and direct connections to the Holocaust.
Transcript here: http://speakingofrace.ua.edu/uploads/1/1/0/5/110557873/transcript.pdf -
Race and Ancestry in Forensic Anthropology
The idea that race is a biological reality has hung on longest and strongest in the parts of biological anthropology that deal with skeletal remains. In this episode we talk with two forensic anthropologists, Sean Tallman and Allysha Winburn, about how typological notions of race and ancestry have changed over time in this segment of the discipline. They have published a recent paper discussing this change (Tallman, S. D., Parr, N. M., & Winburn, A. P. (2021). Assumed Differences; Unquestioned Typologies: The Oversimplification of Race and Ancestry in Forensic Anthropology. Forensic Anthropology, Early View, 1-24. doi:https://doi.org/10.5744/fa.2020.0046).
Additional resources:
J. Bindon, M. Peterson, & L. J. Weaver (Producer). (2017, 11/14/2017). Race and the Human Genome Project [Retrieved from http://speakingofrace.ua.edu/podcast/race-and-the-human-genome-project
Bindon, J. R. (2020). Race in the wake of the Human Genome Project. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342215956_Race_in_the_wake_of_the_Human_Genome_Project
Crews, D. E., & Bindon, J. R. (1991). Ethnicity as a taxonomic tool in biomedical and biosocial research. Ethnicity & disease, 1(1), 42-49.
Dixon, R. B. (1923). The Racial History of Man. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.
Holden, C. (2008). Personal genomics. The touchy subject of ‘race’. Science (New York, N.Y.), 322(5903), 839.
Hooton, E. A. (1931). Up from the Ape. New York: Macmillan.
Lieberman, L., Kirk, R. C., & Littlefield, A. (2003). Perishing Paradigm: Race—1931–99. American Anthropologist, 105(1), 110-113.
Morning, A. (2011). The nature of race. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wagner, J. K., Yu, J. H., Ifekwunigwe, J. O., Harrell, T. M., Bamshad, M. J., & Royal, C. D. (2017). Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 162(2), 318-327.
Customer Reviews
Very close to be perfect
One mistake, the genetic variation among human is less than the genetic variation among different chimpanzees. The total human variations are severely affected by the migration, founder effect, and bottle neck event.
I love the topics and information
But I need y’all to relax. There is no naturalness in the way you speak. Just take a breath and stop trying to force it. Let you’re real personality come through.
Important discussion, done well
Truly fantastic, hope it is heard widely.