STEP - Science and Technology in the European Periphery

Workshop
Observing, Breeding, Cloning – Science at the Zoo (1800 to the Present)

31 May / 1 June 2011
Organizers: Sandra Nicolodi and Marianne Sommer (University Zurich), Oliver Hochadel (CSIC Barcelona)

Venue: University Zurich, Rämistrasse 71, KOL-N-1/2 (Main building, Uniturm, Stockwerk N)
This workshop will ask in how far the zoo was instrumental in ­ – and shaped – emerging disciplines such as ethology, ecology, veterinary medicine and zoo biology. Did it have an impact on the debate about evolutionary theory? And what role did (and still does) the zoo play in the wildlife conservation movement? The workshop will focus on the research practices involved: How far were breeding technologies (artificial insemination, cloning etc.) appropriated and further developed in the zoo? In how far did the specific settings of the “hybrid” institution of the zoo (a place of education but also of entertainment) enable, trigger or rather impede investigations? And finally: how does the zoo compare to similar institutions such as natural history museum in this respect? How and to what extent was knowledge produced in the zoo? Where did this knowledge “travel” to (if at all) and how was it used in different contexts?

Tuesday 31 May 2011

9.30
Introduction by the organizers

10.00
Oliver Hochadel (CSIC Barcelona): Science at the Nineteenth Century
Zoological Gardens – An unfulfilled Promise?

11.00
Coffee break

11.30
Nigel Rothfels (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee): From Taxonomy
to Conservation – Saving the Przewalski's Horse

12.30
Lunch break

14.00
Marianne Sommer (Universität Zürich): „In the Zoo it is possible to see animals which are adapted
to a great many different kinds of habitat and ways of life“
– Julian Huxley’s Evolutionary Synthesis and the London Zoo

15.00
Veronika Hofer (Medizinische Universität Wien): Territory as an Open
Concept – Hediger as Mediator between Zoo-Architecture and the
Theory of Evolution

Wednesday 1 June

9.00
Priska Gisler (Hochschule der Künste Bern): When Zoo Animals became
Blood Donors – Some Aspects of the History of Serology in the 20th
Century

10.00
Carrie Friese (London School of Economics): Wild Life – Bioscience and
Biomedicine in Zoo Animal Collection Practices

11.00
Coffee break

11.15
Sandra Nicolodi (Universität Zürich): Bonobos in the Making –
Reflecting on Zoonation and Zoos as Sites of Knowledge Production

12.15
Lunch break

13.30
Alexander Scheuerlein (Max Planck Institute for Demographic
Research Rostock): Zoos as Knowledge Repositories for Conservation
and Aging Research

14.30
Patricia Purtschert (ETH Zürich): Zurich’s Masoala Hall – Showcasing an
Ethical Model of Exhibition or Returning to the Human Zoo?

15.30
Final discussion

Registration: nicolodi@fsw.uzh.ch
Further information: www.phylogenetic-memory.uzh.ch