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SUMMARY:Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life - Dr Ross Brooks (Oxford Broo
 kes University)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20251202T160000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20251202T170000Z
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/1558ab89-9943-4dcf-87d3-b9fc26c43098/
DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, Dr Ross Brooks (he/him) will give us a sneak pr
 eview (and perhaps even a covert cover reveal!) of his forthcoming book\, 
 _Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life_\, to be published by Yale Universit
 y Press next August. Perceptions of Darwin’s sexological ideas and legac
 y have long been clouded by simplistic accounts of his theory of sexual se
 lection: competitive males and coy females perpetuating species. Digging d
 eeper\, Ross will outline some of Darwin’s encounters with queer creatur
 es and how they continually modified his thinking about the origins and ev
 olution of sex\, leading him to the startling conclusion\, ‘Every man & 
 woman is hermaphrodite.’ Intersex fish species\, seahorse dads\, gynandr
 omorph butterflies\, a hen-feathered cockerel named Hector. All queered Da
 rwin’s evolutionary sexology in ways that have hitherto been little appr
 eciated\, obscured by his dogmatic devotion to Victorian gender and sexual
  mores.\n \n*Dr Brooks* is an Associate Lecturer in history at Oxford Broo
 kes University and curator of the Queer Oxford project (queeroxford.info).
  He has been integral in originating queer perspectives on the history of 
 evolutionary biology and his reappraisal of Charles Darwin's sexological s
 cience has been especially influential. Ross appears in the pioneering nat
 ure documentary Queer Planet which premiered in the UK on Sky Nature in No
 vember 2023. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society.\n\nAny questions\, ple
 ase contact "$":mailto:natalie.duffus@biology.ox.ac.uk or "$":mailto:willi
 am.paine@biology.ox.ac.uk\nSpeakers:\nDr Ross Brooks (Oxford Brookes Unive
 rsity)
LOCATION:Lecture Theatre\, Life and Mind Building\, Oxford OX1 3RB
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/1558ab89-9943-4dcf-87d3-b9fc26c43098/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life - Dr Ross Brooks (Ox
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