
FREE
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Multidisciplinary Perspectives on "Race"
Monday, April 14, 2008
Presented By
Presented by Psychology Section
Speaker: Jefferson Fish, Professor Emeritus, St. John’s University
In order to understand the complex issues associated with the concept "race," it is essential to cross disciplinary boundaries. This presentation will briefly review the spread of humans out of Africa and around the planet over tens of thousands of years, and the spread of the race concept out of Europe and around the planet over a few hundred years. One surprising discovery is that people can change their race simply by traveling from one country to another. What changes is not what they look like, or their genes, or ancestry—but rather the cultural concepts used to classify them.