04-24-07

Media Release

Final Horning Lecture Presents ‘Darwin, Sex and Slavery’

CORVALLIS, Ore. – “Darwin, Sex and Slavery” is the subject of the final lecture in Oregon State University’s 2006-07 Horning Endowment in the Humanities lecture series, which has focused on “The Cultural Politics of Evolution.”

James Moore’s lecture begins at 4 p.m. Thursday, May 10, in OSU’s Memorial Union Journey Room. Moore is a professor of the history of science at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England.

Moore’s talk will focus on the link between Charles Darwin’s books “The Descent of Man” and “Selection in Relation to Sex” and the moral movement of his time, the campaign to abolish slavery.

Moore has taught at Cambridge, Harvard, Notre Dame and McMaster universities. His books include “The Post-Darwinian Controversies” (1979), “History, Humanity and Evolution” (1989) and “The Darwin Legend” (1994). Co-author of the best-selling biography “Darwin,” Moore is working on a life of Darwin’s rival Alfred Russel Wallace and also collaborating on a book for the 2009 Darwin bicentenary, “Darwin’s Sacred Cause.”

This lecture series is sponsored by the Thomas Hart and Mary Jones Horning Endowment of the Humanities. It brings distinguished scholars and teachers in the sciences and the humanities to OSU.