Öppet seminarium med Marius Turda: On Eugenics and Dehumanisation

Eugenic propaganda instilled the need to 'purify the race' of Jews, Roma, Sámi, and other ethnic minorities alongside the eugenic necessity of eliminating 'defectives' from society in many European counties during World War II and even before. In Nazi Germany, these 'undesirables' were called 'lebenunwertes Leben': lives deemed 'unworthy of life'. As I discuss in this talk, eugenics prioritised the life of individuals deemed less so. Unfortunately, the normative eugenic representation of 'human value' did not vanish after the Holocaust. It remains deeply embedded in our thinking about difference to this very day. As we continue to fight for racial equality and social justice, we should try to understand past and present ideas of eugenics. We must confront and expose them to move forward. 

Bio: 

Marius Turda is Professor and Director of the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University. He is the founding director of the Cantemir Institute at the University of Oxford (2012-13) and forunder of the Workding Group in the History of Race abd Eugenics (2006). In 2020, he established Romania's first Centre for the History of Eugenics and Racism at the Insitute of History 'G. Baritiu' in Cluj. He has authored, co-authored and edited more than 25 books on the history of eugenics, race and racism in East-Central Europe and beyond. He is the General Editor of Bloomsbury's A Cultural History of Race (2021). Between 2018 and 2022, he also curated four exhibitions on eugenics, racial anthropology and biopolitics. His most recent public engagement project is www.confront-eugenics.org. 

Suggested pre-reading: 

Marius Turda (2022) Legacies of eugenics: confronting the past, forging a future, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45:13, 2470-2477, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2022.2095222 

Marius Turda (2022) Exploring the Legacies of Eugenics in Psychiatry – Part I: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/blogs/detail/history-archives-and-library-blog/2022/10/24/eugenics-in-psychiatry-part-one?searchTerms=eugenics

Marius Turda (2022) Exploring the Legacies of Eugenics in Psychiatry – Part II https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/blogs/detail/history-archives-and-library-blog/2022/11/03/eugenics-in-psychiatry-part-two

Moderator: Claes Tängh Wrangel
Commentator: May-Britt Öhman 

Online participation is offered, please enter Zoom latest by 13.00. Zoom link: https://uu-se.zoom.us/webinar/68019715336