The 2024 Centre for Victorian Studies Annual Public Lecture

We are all familiar with the ‘march of progress’, the representation of evolution that depicts a series of apelike creatures becoming progressively taller and more erect before finally reaching the upright human form. Its emphasis on linear progress has had a decisive impact on public understanding of evolution, much to the annoyance of modern scientists, and the image has been endlessly parodied as an internet meme. This lecture will explore, for the first time, the origins and history of this ubiquitous and hugely consequential illustration. In a story spanning more than a century, from Victorian Britain to America in the Space Age, Gowan Dawson shows how one of the world’s most recognizable images is far more strange, contentious and paradoxical than has ever been realized.

Gowan Dawson is Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the  University of Leicester and Honorary Research Fellow at the Natural  History Museum, London. His research combines the history of science  with cultural, literary and art history. His books include Show Me the Bone: Reconstructing Prehistoric Monsters in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Monkey to Man: The Evolution of the March of Progress Image (Yale University Press, 2024).

This event is brought to you by the University of Leicester's Centre for Victorian Studies, and the Literary Leicester Festival as part of its annual events series.

ACCESSIBILITY & PARKING: The venue is wheel-chair accessible. Parking is available in the Freeman's Common Multi-Storey Car Park or the Victoria Park Car Park. There is wheel-chair access from the car park right to the venue.

Header picture credit: Yale University Press