IThe seminar deals with the development of racial thinking and of hereditarian thought in the West throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. First we will discuss the development of racial science in the biological, colonial, political and social context; the construction of racial hierarchies, racial purity vs. hybridity, and the gendered aspects of racial thinking. Then we will become acquainted with the consolidation of hereditarian thinking and the creation of modern genetics. We will see how racial thought and hereditarian theories became part of the rise of right-wing nationalism in the first half of the 20th centuries, of the evolution of eugenics, and of the Nazi project. We will get to know relevant theories from the field of the philosophy and sociology of science and work with historical sources. Finally, we will discuss racial and hereditarian thinking from 1945 to the present. Participation is conditioned on active involvement  in class discussions and on extensive reading.