Piers Hale

My research interests focus upon the ways in which the life sciences have contributed to the ways in which we think about what it means to be human. The science of biology has historically had so much to say about what is 'natural' for humans - both what is possible, and what is not; and, as our understandings of biology have changed, so too have our understandings of the limits of human possibility. Just one aspect of this that is pressing today is the way in which we think about genetic inheritance, gene-therapies and genetic-engineering, and how they potentially open up a whole new chapter in the ways in which we think about ourselves....

Social, political and scientific history of evolutionary biology; biomedical and environmental ethics; British socialism; environmentalism and feminism; gender and the body; science and utopia

He is currently working with Mellon and Fulbright Fellow Aditi Barman Roy on eugenics and post-humanism, and science in fiction.

Dr. Hale is interested in hearing from students interested in graduate research in the social, cultural, and political history of evolutionary thought.

“H.G. Wells and the Politics of Evolution,” in The Oxford Handbook of H.G. Wells, (eds.) Duncan Bell and Sarah Cole, Oxford University Press (in press, 2025).

Caden C. Testa and Piers J. Hale, (eds). Evolution Before Darwin. Vol. 1 in a series, Routledge Historical Sources, London: Routledge, 2025. ISBN 9781032791128.

Plön, S., Andra, K., Auditore, L., Gegout, C., Hale, P., Hampe, O., Henry, M. R., Holm, P., Jaigirdar, A. M., Klein, L.1 , Maewashe, K., Müssig, J., Ramsarup, N., Roussouw, N.1 , Sabin, R., Shongwe, T., Tuddenham, P. "Marine mammals as indicators of Anthropocene Ocean Health." npj biodiversity 3, 24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-024-00055-5

“The Politics of the Darwinian Revolution,” in Imagining the Darwinian Revolution: The Place of History in Science, (ed.) Ian Hesketh, (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2022), pp.103– 120.

Piers J. Hale, Nathan Kapoor, Elizabeth Neswald, and Michael Barton (eds.), The Correspondence of John Tyndall, Volume 8, (1861-1865). Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2021.

“Charles Darwin, sexual selection and the evolution of other-regarding ethics,” BJHS Themes, (2021), 6, pp.157–177.

“Charles Kingsley and the evolution of man and morals in Water-Babies” in J.M.I. Klaver and J. Conlin (eds.), Charles Kingsley: Faith, Flesh and Fantasy (London: Routledge, 2021), pp.159– 183. 

Political Descent: Malthus, Mutualism and the Politics of Evolution in Victorian England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.