Research Coffee with Drew Brandon

Research Coffee is a series of events aimed to be a platform for discussions about publications, projects, and working papers of AAU Faculty as well as AAU students. Prior registration is required for this event.

Our next session will be hosted by Dr. Mark Andrew Brandon who will present his work “The Safest Guide and Savior: Science, Morality and Race in the 20th Century”.

We will welcome discussants: Prof. Ivo Budil (Metropolitan University, Prague) and doc. Jiří Kašný (AAU).

You can find the abstract of the paper below, but to receive the full paper and the link to the meeting, please register in advance. We look forward to seeing you!

Abstract:
Czech-American anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička (1869-1943) was a key researcher at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and an internationally admired scientist. Hrdlička was not only a specialist in his field, but he also committed himself philosophically to science as, in his words, the “safest guide and savior” for modern civilization. At a time when traditional religious thinking seemed discredited, Hrdlička believed that science revealed better moral principles founded on indisputable laws of “nature.” What kind of morality did Hrdlička infer from “nature”? Using original research of previously untapped archival sources, this talk will piece together Hrdlička’s ethical assumptions and suggest ways they were acted out in the twentieth century.