The Maternal Imprint (Free Virtual Lecture)

Sarah Richardson, Professor of the History of Science and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University

In conversation with Emily Oster, Professor of Economics, Brown University

At the turn of the twentieth century, any notion that a pregnant woman could alter her offspring’s physical and behavioral traits was dismissed as it was believed that a child’s fate was set by its genes and upbringing. Today, a wide body of interdisciplinary research argues that a woman’s experiences, behaviors, and physiology can have life-altering effects on offspring development. Drawing on her new book, The Maternal Imprint, (University of Chicago Press, 2021), leading gender and science scholar Sarah Richardson will examine how our ideas about heredity and maternal-fetal effects have evolved over the last fifty years.  A conversation with economist and best-selling author Emily Oster will follow.

Presented by Harvard Museum of Natural History, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, and Harvard Museums of Science & Culture