Target Audience

Des Moines University faculty, staff, and students.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize variation in the socially constructed race categories during the 1800 and 1900, and recognize a causational force for human biological variation today.
• Critique the use of the race concept as a strategy for knowing the value of a human being.
• Evaluate the use of race as an explanatory variable in medical diagnoses.

Speaker

Hannah E. Marsh, PhD
Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of Central Missouri

Dr. Marsh's research focuses on recent human cranial variation to infer the relatedness of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, specifically growth and development of the cranial vault. By looking at recent human variation through the scope of human evolution, she and others in her field have come to recognize that humans today have low variation levels, even though human groups can look very different from one another. In society, human variation is called race, and race is used to negatively judge people. However, human populational differences actually tell an amazing story about human survival around the world, something to be celebrated. Biology can help dismantle the societal stereotypes of race, and make a healthier and safer world for all of us.

Curriculum Vitae