Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar to set Darwin talk to music

Music and song will serve as instruments to explore matters of science in this year?s Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture. The talk, titled ?Singing His Praises: Darwin and His Theory in Song, and Musical Production,? will be delivered at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22, in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall, by Vassiliki (Betty) Smocovitis, a professor of history and zoology at the University of Florida. Both the talk and the following reception in the auditorium?s lobby are free and open to the public.

The lecture is designed to introduce general audiences to the life and work of the famed English naturalist Charles Darwin in advance of the upcoming Year of Darwin?2009 will mark the 200th anniversary of the scientist?s birth and the 150th year since the publication of his masterwork, On the Origin of Species. Smocovitis?s talk will offer new insights on the issues and controversies provoked by Darwin?s theory of evolution, and explore the relationship between science and American popular culture in ?a lighthearted and engaging manner,? she said. ?Lots of music will be played and discussed.?

Smocovitis, who currently holds joint appointments as professor in both the departments of history and zoology, has received six teaching awards during her 20 years at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the history, philosophy, and sociology of the 20th-century biological sciences, especially evolutionary biology, and on systematics, ecology, genetics, and the history of American botany. She is the author of Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology and of two works in progress, One Hundred Years of the Botanical Society of America and G. Ledyard Stebbins and the Evolutionary Synthesis.

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a recent chair of its history and philosophy of science section, Smocovitis has been the recipient of a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities and grants from the Botanical Society of America, the National Science Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Athens, Cornell, Emory, and Stanford, and a visiting research associate at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Papua New Guinea.

The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program each year makes available 12 or 13 distinguished scholars for two-day visits to 100 colleges and universities. The scholars meet informally with students and faculty members, take part in classroom discussions, and give a public lecture open to the entire academic community. Skidmore?s Phi Beta Kappa chapter was chartered by the national honor society in 1970.

For more information, call 518-580-5289.