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Origin of biology
Foreign languages and literatures' Kevin Amidon uses prestigious
fellowship to see how an academic discipline developed.
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In a span of just a few days last spring, Kevin Amidon received not only
a job offer from Iowa State's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures,
but also a particularly enticing opportunity in Germany.
"I was offered the positions at almost the same moment, at least
in the same week," Amidon said. "Post-doctoral fellowships and
assistant professorships in the humanities are hard to come by. It was
dumb luck that I was offered both a postdoc and a job at the same time."
In addition to his offer to come to Iowa State as an assistant professor
of German, Amidon was awarded a postdoc fellowship from the Free University
of Berlin. In the end, Amidon didn't have to make a choice between the
two.
"Through the efforts of Madeleine Henry (former chair of the Department
of Foreign Languages and Literatures) and others in the department and
on campus I was able to defer the fellowship for a few months," Amidon
said.
That deferment ends this April when he begins an 11-month Social Science
Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Free University of Berlin,
working on his research project, "Lebenswerth and Lebenszweck: Aesthetic
Values and Race in German Biology." Lebenswerth and Lebenszweck are
German words that translate into "the value of life" and "the
purpose of life."
"Those words were used by important German biologists and they have
both biological and philosophical meaning," Amidon said.
Specifically Amidon will look at the development of biology as an academic
discipline through a project on evolution and human diversity in German
biological thought.
In the late 19th century, academicians in the sciences first began to
refer to biology by that name. Prior to that any instruction in university
classrooms was deemed either natural history or natural philosophy.
This is an important, but not very well known history of the development
of biology as an academic discipline, and German scientists played a large
role in that development," Amidon said." "My research will
focus on getting a handle on what they (German scientists) were arguing
and how they began persuading people about this new academic discipline."
A major part of the development of biology as an academic discipline came
from faculty scientists in German universities. That influence eventually
was brought into American classrooms and laboratories.
In his research, Amidon also works on an additional set of ideas and institutions
in 19th and 20th century German culture. Music, especially opera, holds
a special significance and tradition in German cultural life and identity
formation during this time frame.
"When you think of the cultural contributions the German people have
made to the world, they make great music and are significant scientists.
Both music and science are crucial in German history," Amidon said.
"But what is it about music and science that is fundamentally German?
"On the surface, music and science couldn't be any more different,"
he continued. "But if you look closer they both tap into the same
set of ideas, goals and cultural practices."
Around LAS
February 24 to March 9, 2003
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