Institute of Historical Research

Biology, Brain Theory and History
Why are we asking this question now?

Professor Roger Cooter
(UCL)

The 'turn to affect' in the social sciences has increasingly involved the incorporation of insights from biology and the neurosciences in its analysis of human behaviour. What significance does the return to biology have for historians? Does the 'turn to affect' represent a return to biological essentialism and the abandonment of theories of social constructionism? Should biology be viewed as just another discourse? Or has a false dichotomy been posed between the biological and the social? Our panel of speakers will address the implications of these debates not only for historians but for all those concerned to develop a historical understanding of human behaviour.

Conversations and Disputations: Discussions among Historians