Center for Biology and Society

MBL-Arizona State University History of Biology Seminar

Marine Biological Laboratory
Woods Hole, MA

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The MBL-ASU Seminar is funded through ASU, with additional funding from the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology.

2008 Topic:  Embryos in Historical Context

Dates: May 14- 21

Application Deadline: January 15, 2008

Click here for printable version of this announcement.

The MBL-ASU History of Biology Seminar is an intensive week with annually varying topics designed for a group of no more than 25 advanced graduate students, postdoctoral associates, younger scholars, and established researchers in biology, history, philosophy, and the social sciences.

The topic for 2008 is: "Embryos in Historical Context” 

In 1987, the first MBL History of Biology course focused on History of Embryology and Genetics.  Embryology has always held a central place at the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the MBL has held a central place in the history of Embryology.  As Embryology has become known as Developmental Biology, the MBL has continued to provided an important place for research and education asking about how development occurs.  After 20 years, the History of Biology seminar again focuses on Embryology and Developmental Biology. 

One of the questions of the seminar will be what we know about the MBL’s Embryology course and research over more than a century. How can we capture this history?  And how might this knowledge inform current and future decisions about embryo research and its social, political, economic, and other complex contexts? Working within the digital environment of the NSF-funded Embryo Project at ASU’s Center for Biology and Society (http://embryo.asu.edu/index.php), we will look at people who have done embryo research in the past century, places they worked, research practices and technologies, concepts developed, images and literature produced, and the multiple contexts in which they worked. In the case of the MBL Embryology Course this means, for example. generating a list of all course directors, with pictures, links to their publications, discussions of organisms selected and technology used, and all other aspects of the research can provide vibrant links among otherwise divergent sources and can bring together scholarship that normally resides in dispersed places that those in other fields never see.

The MBL is just one example among the week’s worth of examples we will examine. The seminar will draw on the best available scholarship to explore how embryological research developed at the MBL and other places. We will consider why researchers chose to work at MBL and other locations and what they gained by having multiple sites for research. We will also trace how organisms, techniques, and research programs changed over time? Was the MBL typical or unique, and why?

The seminar is an excellent opportunity for graduate students interested in any aspects of embryo research and its scientific and social contexts to help shape their research.  It is also an excellent opportunity for developmental biologists to become involved with history, and historians/ philosophers/social scientists to become involved with embryology.  The seminar is intended for all scholars with an interest in embryo research and its relations to other sciences and society. 

Seminar Directors: John Beatty, University of British Columbia (john.beatty@ubc.edu); James Collins, Arizona State University (jcollins@asu.edu); Jane Maienschein, Arizona State University (maienschein@asu.edu)

Organizers for 2008: Jane Maienschein (maienschein@asu.edu), Manfred Laubichler (manfred.laubichler@asu.edu), and Michael Dietrich (Dietrich@dartmouth.edu)

The History of Biology Seminar is offered in collaboration with and is funded by Arizona State University. For more information about the seminar, past topics, updates, and application information, please visit: http://asu.edu/clas/histbiombl/