Twisted Tree: Eugenics Historical and Contemporary

Taught by Ben Woodard (Acid Horizon Research Commons)

For decades, a comfortable political consensus held that eugenics had been buried alongside Nazism in the rubble of the twentieth century. That consensus has not survived contact with the present. The global resurgence of the right and far-right has made plain that eugenic thinking never disappeared — it retreated, mutated, and waited. Now it returns, bolstered by conspiratorial reasoning, rampant accumulation, and a nostalgic hunger for a past that never existed. The twisted tree was never cut down. It was only pruned.

This four-week seminar offers a broad and rigorous account of eugenics from its colonial and anthropological roots to its contemporary genomic and nativist expressions. Drawing on philosophy of biology, history of science, science and technology studies, and media studies, the course traces how race has been constructed, measured, animated, and weaponized — and how those operations persist in new vocabularies. From the skull-hoarding enthusiasms of nineteenth-century recapitulationists to the gene-centric fantasies of sociobiology to the white mythologies circulating in today's natalist right, eugenics reveals itself not as a historical aberration but as a recurring temptation of modernity.

The course moves through four sessions, each targeting a distinct phase of this history: the anthro-religious construction of race in early colonialism; the Darwinian and post-Darwinian biologization of racial hierarchy; the molecular turn and the emergence of genomics; and finally the contemporary landscape of nativism, white nostalgia, and late fascism. Readings are drawn from philosophy, biology, feminist theory, and critical race studies — voices that expose not only what eugenics has claimed, but what those claims have cost.

Course Structure

Session 1, June 7 — "The Omelet of Race" Race as anthro-religious category, first-wave colonialism, and the project of numbering the races. Readings include excerpts from Ashley Montague's The Invention of Race, Sylvia Wynter's "Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom," and Alamariu's Eugenics and the Birth of Philosophy.

Session 2, June 14 — "Breeders and Skull Hoarders" Darwinian evolution, recapitulation theory, social Darwinism, teleological evolution, and the animalization of race. Readings include Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, Robert Richards' "Was Hitler a Darwinian?", and an excerpt from Zakiyyah Iman Jackson's Becoming Human.

Session 3, June 21 — "Lego Genetics and Alpha Dogs" Sociobiology, gene-centrism, genomics, and post-genomics. Readings include Evelyn Fox Keller's The Century of the Gene, Luciana Parisi's Abstract Sex, and Mary Jane West-Eberhard's "The Maintenance of Sex as a Developmental Trap Due to Sexual Selection."

Session 4, June 28 — "Bright White Nostalgia" Nativism and indigeneity, white myths, and the contemporary natalist turn. Readings include Alberto Toscano's Late Fascism, Angela Saini's Superior, and Miri Davidson's "Sea and Earth."

Instructor Bio

Ben Woodard is a lecturer and researcher whose work explores the relationship between naturalism and idealism in nineteenth-century philosophy. He received his PhD in Theory and Criticism from Western University and completed a postdoctoral habilitation at Leuphana University's Institute of Philosophy and Sciences of Art. He has lectured at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy, the School of Materialist Research, and the New Centre for Research and Practice. His current research focuses on the politicization of biology through eugenics and statistics; he also writes on science fiction, horror film, and French philosophy.

Course Schedule

All sessions meet from 2:00–4:00 PM CET / 8:00–10:00 AM EDT via Zoom.

Session 1: June 7 — "The Omelet of Race"

Session 2: June 14 — "Breeders and Skull Hoarders"

Session 3: June 21 — "Lego Genetics and Alpha Dogs"

Session 4: June 28 — "Bright White Nostalgia"

Students will receive access to all recorded sessions and supplementary reading materials. Upon enrollment, a recurring Zoom link will be provided to access your classroom.