L'anti-racisme scientifique

Scientific Anti-Racism in the 20th Century. Disciplines, Trajectories and Politics
 

International Conference
 

Campus Condorcet (Aubervilliers)- Centre de colloques room/salle 100
11-12 December 2025 

 

11 December
 

9:00 – 10:00: Welcome/Introduction
Luc Berlivet (CNRS, Cermes3), Fabrice Cahen (Ined, UR11&UR4), Claude-Olivier Doron
(SPHERE/Université Paris Cité)

Session 1 – Anthropology, Races and Anti-Racism in the Interwar Period
Chair: Claude-Olivier Doron

10:00 – 10:50: Maciej Górny (Polish Academy of Sciences): “’Rassenkampf’: East Central
European Dialogue with German Racial Theories”

10:50 - 11:40: Christine Laurière (CNRS, HERITAGES): “Paul Rivet & the Temple of Man. Some
Shades of Anti-Racism in 1930’s French Ethnologie”
 

11:40 - 11:55: Break

11:55 - 12:45: Zacharias Zoubir (CPGE, Le Mans): “The Society/Nature and European/Non-
European Dichotomies in Franz Boas’ Critiques of Race and Racism”

12:45 - 13:00: General discussion
 

Lunch

 

Session 2 – Psychology and the Question of Races
Chair: Francesco Cassata

14:30 - 15:20: Alexej Lochmatow (University of Erfurt): “(De-)Racializing Intelligence in
‘Zionist Science’: A Search for Historical Agency beyond the Domains of ‘Race’ (1900–1933)”

15:20 - 16:10: Chloé Maurel (Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine/PSL): “Otto
Klineberg and Marie Jahoda: Two Humanist Psychologists at UNESCO Applying Social
Psychology to Anti-Racism and the Pursuit of International Understanding”

16:10 - 16:30: Break

16:30 - 17:20: Christelle Gomis (University of Picardy Jules Verne): “Beyond Brown: The Clark
Doll Test, Migrant Children in 1960s–70s Britain and the Limits of Psychological Anti-Racism” 

17:20 – 17:45: General discussion
 

Conference dinner
 

12 December
 

Session 3 – Biology and Genetics against Racism
Chair: Snait Gissis 

09:30 – 10:20: Lisa Gannett (Saint Mary’s University, Halifax - CAN): “How to Be (or Not to
Be) a Scientific Anti-Racist: Lessons from Dobzhansky and Lewontin”

10:20 - 11:10: Cameron Brinitzer (Harvard University): “Genetics as Alibi: Racial Aporias
amid Black Radicalism in the California Bay Area”

11:10-11:20: Break 

11:20 – 12:10: Nayanika Ghosh (Duke University): “A Case to Include the Archives of
Repression in the Archive of Scientific Anti-Racism”

12:10 – 12:30: General discussion
 

Lunch
 

Session 4 – Science beyond Race? Transformations and Shortcomings of Scientific Anti-Racism
Chair: Luc Berlivet

14:00 – 14:50: Snait Gissis (Tel Aviv University): “Can there be Scientific Anti-Racism when
there is Racism but no “Race”? The Case of Israel”

14:50 – 15:40: Francesco Cassata (University of Genova): “In the Shadow of the 1938 ‘Race
Manifesto’: Reshaping Scientific Anti-Racism in Italy”

15:40 – 16:30: Claude-Olivier Doron (Université Paris-Cité): “Sciences against Racism in
French Media. Evolving Strategies and Shifting Concepts between 1945 and the Late 1970s”

16:30 – 16:45: General Discussion

16:45-17:00: Break
 

A Personal Perspective on Scientific Anti-Racism in France
Introduction: Fabrice Cahen
 

17:00-18:00: André Langaney (Emeritus Professor at the Musée de l’Homme and the
University of Geneva)