Darwin's Reach, a conference to be held next March 12-14 at Hofstra University in New York, is inviting academics from a broad range of disciplines to submit proposals for papers. Paper topics can be drawn from the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and law, and suggested topics include Darwin's legacy; misapplications of Darwinism; evolution in the courts; and the relationship between evolution and religion, morality, language, or global climate change. The conference, timed to honor the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, will focus on the ways Darwin's ideas have influenced our understanding of the natural world and transformed a variety of fields. Keynote speakers will include Emory University psychologist and primatologist Frans de Waal and Judge John E. Jones III, famous for ruling that the Dover Area School Board couldn't introduce the teaching of "intelligent design" into biology classes. (ID is a religious rather than scientific idea, he said.)
Paper proposals should be submitted as 200-word abstracts, and presentations at the conference will be limited to 20 minutes. The submission deadline is June 16. —Kaitlin Shimer