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Thursday, October 3, 2002
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
GALESBURG -- Richard W. Burkhardt, Jr., professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will give a free, public lecture, "Animal Breeding and the Social Order from the Enlightenment to Charles Darwin," at 4 p.m., Friday, Oct. 18, in the Common Room, Old Main, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois.
The talk is the annual Burkhardt Lecture, presented by the Knox College History department.
Burkhardt specializes in the history of biology, evolution and social thought. He has lectured world-wide and has written extensively on the history of evolutionary theory and the biological study of behavior. He is the author of the book "The Spirit of System: Lamarck and Evolutionary Biology," and thirty articles in scholarly journals. He recently completed a book manuscript on twentieth-century research into animal behavior. His most recent research focuses on zoos as centers of science and culture in the nineteenth century and on scientific approaches to animal breeding.
Burkhardt received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University. He has taught at the University of Illinois since 1976, also serving as chair of the history department, director of the Campus Honors Program, and director of the Program in Science, Technology and Society. He has received several teaching awards from the University of Illinois, and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation. Burkhardt is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and past president of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology.
The Burkhardt Lectureship is funded by an endowment established by Mr. Burkhardt's parents — Richard W. Burkhardt, former president and professor at Ball State University, and Dorothy Johnson Burkhardt, retired professor of modern languages at Ball State — both 1939 graduates of Knox College. Mrs. Burkhardt is a trustee of Knox College and earlier this year was named "Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques" by the Prime Minister of France for her services to French culture and her promotion of cultural interchange between France and the U.S. The lectureship was established in memory of Richard W. Burkhardt's parents, Edgar and Ruth Burkhardt.
Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 48 states and 40 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
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