Duke hosts an interdisciplinary conference to celebrate the work of Darwin.

This year marks both the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, The Origin of Species. To celebrate these events, Duke's Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) and the vice provost for interdisciplinary studies are co-sponsoring "Darwin Across the Disciplines," on Thursday, Nov. 5 and Friday, Nov. 6. The symposium is free and open to the public.

Duke chose deliberately to approach the anniversaries in an interdisciplinary manner, says English professor Ian Baucom, director of the FHI.

"We want to put the questions that Darwin's work asks into conversations between the disciplines rather than parceling them out. We plan to have an interdisciplinary conversation about Darwin among the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences," says Baucom.

In each of the sessions, the FHI -- working in partnership with Duke's other interdisciplinary institutes -- has paired a scholar from the humanities with a scholar from the social sciences or medical sciences to create "a sense of engagement that traffics across this very domain," says Baucom.

The symposium also seeks to address the enterprise of interdisciplinary work by bringing diverse scholars together and using Darwin as a case to explore the limits of interdisciplinary conversations.

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Symposium: Darwin Across the Disciplines
4:00 to 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 5.
11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday, Nov. 6
Rare Book Room, Perkins Library
Information: fhi.duke.edu