More human than human?

January 26, 2015

Priscilla Wald, a scholar of U.S. literature and culture from Duke University, will give a free public talk Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in Smathers Library (East) 100.

The talk will focus on how scientific advances in the 20^th and 21^st centuries have changed how we think about human life. Wald will analyze key works of science fiction, significant legal cases and key policy debates to detail the convergence of scientific innovation and political change in her talk, “More Human than Human: The Work of Life in the Age of Biotechnical Reproduction.”

Wald is a professor of English and Women’s Studies at Duke University and the author of several books including “Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form” and “Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative.”

This is the fourth in a series of six lectures entitled “The Work of the Humanities: Critical Thinking in Life and Labor” organized by the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.