Monmouth
College’s Nineteenth-Century Studies Program and Biology Department present a
sixteen-month celebration commemorating the 200th anniversary of
Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication
of On the Origin of Species. Darwin’s influences on the
sciences, arts, and humanities will be vehicles for Monmouth College’s
emphasis on integrated learning and an exciting series of events. For more,
information contact Rob Hale (rhale@monm.edu),
Heather Brady (hbrady@monm.edu),
or Ken Cramer (kenc@monm.edu).
Click the icon above for an event schedule.Click the flier below for more details on Ken Cramer's speaker series.
The 19th-Century Studies Minor is an interdisciplinary program designed to help students understand people, events, ideas, and cultural artifacts of the period from 1789-1914 (the long 19th-Century). Students will take courses in an array of disciplines to synthesize an understanding of the 19th-Century and to determine larger patterns of meaning but also question how different disciplines construct and value knowledge.
Faculty in anthropology, art, English, history, humanities, modern foreign languages, music, philosophy, religious studies, and theatre will enable students to explore the period in a variety of ways and to enrich their understanding of the period. In the course of the 19th-Century Studies Minor students will develop a fundamental understanding of human experience during the period from at least three disciplinary perspectives; integrate concepts across program courses to improve understanding of core issues, ideas, events, and cultural artifacts of the period; understand how disciplines construct knowledge similarly and differently.
Learning objectives/outcomes
When students have completed the 19th-Century Studies Minor they will be able to:
- explain the influence of colonialism/imperialism, democracy, evangelicalism, evolution, industrialization, liberalism, nationalism, progressivism, socialism, and utopianism on life, politics, or art during the period;
- define and illustrate the development of important movements during the 19th-Century (romanticism, realism, impressionism, naturalism, and aestheticism);
- compare and contrast how at least three disciplines construct and value knowledge using examples from 19th-Century life, art, and/or culture.
“The Evolution Revolution: a Brief History of
Evolutionary Thought through Darwin”
Ken Cramer, Professor of Biology, Monmouth College
Free Performance:
Overman (Chicago Indie Band)
8:30 p.m., Main Dining Room, Stockdale Center
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 7PM, Highlander Room, Stockdale Center.
“Evolution: the Evidence and Significance”
Ken Cramer, Professor of Biology, Monmouth College
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 7PM, Highlander Room, Stockdale Center.
“What’s So Scary about Evolution?
An Evaluation of the Controversy”
Ken Cramer, Professor of Biology, Monmouth College
THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 7PM, Highlander Room, Stockdale Center.
Donald B. McMullen Memorial Lecture:
“The Historical Position of Literary Darwinism”
Joseph Carroll, Curators’ Professor of English,
University of Missouri-St. Louis
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 7PM, Highlander Room, Stockdale Center.
“Why Darwinism is Too Easy to Understand”
David J. Depew, Professor of Communication Studies
and Rhetoric of Inquiry, University of Iowa
THURSDAY, APRIL 16
“1859: Darwin’s ‘Origin,’ Drake’s Oil,
and Mill’s On Liberty Reconsidered”
Kevin Baldwin, Associate Professor of Biology,
Monmouth College


