"Gender, Race, and the Missing Link: Science and the Transatlantic Debate on 'The Negro Question'"
Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones (History, Ethnic Studies, UNL)
Dr. Jones will explore the transformation of evolutionary thought pre and post-Darwin on transatlantic debates over the enslavement, emancipation, and enfranchisement of the “Negro.” She will focus on the gendering and racialization of the so-called “Missing Link”—the unknown intermediary figure that linked humanity to other mammals in the evolutionary chain. This figure was often linked to African women and apes in popular imagination and popular science.