Professor Joe Cain publishes blog posts on many subjects related to his research interests.
Because I’ve been vocal in arguing for de-naming UCL facilities once (but no longer) associated with racist, nativist, eugenicists Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, I was asked if UCL should de-name its Petrie Museum of More…
For the Innes Lecture 2020, I discussed the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Owing to COVID-related public health restrictions, we moved this lecture online. Details on access now are available through the John Innes Centre. The More…
Shortly after the conclusion of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial – officially, the case of State of Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes, the National Book Company (Cincinnati, Ohio) published transcripts of the trial. Under the More…
The surge of energy for BlackLivesMatter this summer (2020) is driving change in areas far beyond those directly connected with police violence and responsive protests. This surge has given huge momentum to efforts seeking removal More…
It’s been a long road. UCL has announced the official decision to remove the names of Francis Galton and Karl Pearson from its estate. De-named will be the Galton Lecture Theatre, Pearson Lecture Theatre, and More…
Photographs on Twitter show catastrophic damage to the jaw of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Megalosaurus. This is one of the original four giant statues of dinosaurs built by sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins for the opening More…
Francis Galton created a Eugenics Record Office (ERO-Galton) at 88 Gower Street, London, England, in 1904, while developing a scheme to create for himself some research capacity in this area. ERO-Galton operated until 1907, when More…
Charles Darwin lived in number 12 Upper Gower Street between 1839 and 1842, before moving to Down House at the end of summer 1842. (Charles moved into the house on 31 December 1838, spent his More…
In a recent blog post on Lessons About Renaming University Buildings, I developed some key concepts to focus discussions about renaming commemorative objects at universities. The aim was to assist in building a strategy for More…
Summary: The argument builds on several steps. First, naming is a commemorative act. These acts support heritage stories. Conflicts over renaming really are conflicts between heritage stories. These conflicts cannot be resolved by appealing to More…
Copyright 2020 Professor Joe Cain
