Dissertation Research: Geneticist L. C. Dunn and an Intellectual Community of Public Activists

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Geneticist L.C. Dunn and an Intellectual Community of Public ActivistsIntellectual Merits As a subject, geneticist L.C. Dunn (1893-1974) provides a unique portal for viewingtwentieth-century history of biology and its intersection with political, social,racial, and gender issues. Dunn represents the antithesis of a common conception of thescientist as a researcher isolated from others and disengaged from controversial matters.He was, instead, a member of an active community of intellectuals united by theirhumanitarianism. Dunn participated in the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars, the Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, and the American-Soviet Science Society. He worked in the Zoology Department at Columbia University from 1928 to 1962, and was affiliated with the university until his death in 1974. Among his colleagues and collaborators at this institution were geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky and anthropologist Franz Boas. Other scientists who worked with Dunn inside and outside the laboratory were geneticists Milislav Demerec and H. J. Muller, as well as physicist E.U. Condon and zoologist Julian Huxley. Dunn not only contributed to genetics through studies on mutations, evolution, and race, but also to political and social issues by using his scientific knowledge to undermine discrimination that he found abhorrent, notably eugenics, racism, and sexism. Dunn supplemented his genetic knowledge by working closely with scholars trained in other disciplines in an effort to gain a broader understanding of human evolution, heredity, and race. Dunn was also very much involved with the Soviet Union. His respect for the scientific investigations performed by Soviet geneticists encouraged him to supply the country with scientific literature and equipment after the First and Second World Wars. In the 1940s, Dunn helped Soviet geneticists to combat Trofim Lysenko's rise by enlisting American geneticists to refute Lysenko's claims. Thus, a study of Dunn is also a disciplinary history of genetics in the United States and the Soviet Union. This aspect of Dunn's life also allows us to better understand the disillusionment felt by scientists when the Soviet Union closed itself off from international cooperation in 1947-1948. In particular, it provides a new dimension to the early years of the Cold War by assessing the reaction of those previously in regular correspondence with Soviet geneticists.Broader Impacts Topics that often are treated separately come together in the study of Dunn's activities. While Dunn's work focused on genetics, his interest in the topic was never far removed from research in anthropology, sociology, and the study of race. As a result a study of Dunn will incorporate and have important consequences for a wide range of the social and behavioral sciences. Nor was Dunn merely a scholar. On the contrary, he was a leading figure in a network of intellectuals who supported social and political causes. This project will be a narrative and analysis of a scientific life and community, but it will also go beyond the intellectual and social history of biology to illustrate that Dunn and many of his colleagues in the mid-twentieth century were politically engaged. The project will thus offer insights into science and social activism.