Keynote Lecture: Alondra Nelson, “The Social Life of DNA”

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Avaya Auditorium (POB 2.302)

201 East 24th Street – Austin, TX 78712

7:00 – 8:45 pm

Register here

Free and open to the public.

DNA is considered a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life is revelatory. This billion-dollar industry has spawned popular television shows, websites, and a booming heritage tourism circuit. African Americans’ interest in genetic ancestry testing has been especially robust.  DNA-based techniques are being used to grapple with the unfinished business of slavery: to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with ancestral homelands, to rethink citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations. As Nelson will describe, for good and for naught, the double helix has wound its way into the heart of some of the most urgent contemporary social issues around racial inequality.