Berggruen Institute Future Humans Salon: Exploring, Curating and Exhibiting the Origins of Life and of the Earth Since the Nineteenth Century 

Wyman Bar, Bradbury Building. Doors open at 6pm, talk starts at 6:30pm

Space is limited. RSVP required: https://events.berggruen.org/_kz394

Event Description:

How do we make sense of planetary materials—fragments of worlds beyond Earth that land in our hands? What stories do meteorites, cosmic dust, and ancient geological archives tell us about the origins of life—not just here, but possibly elsewhere?

As space agencies prepare for return samples from Mars and its moon Phobos in the 2030s, the process of collecting and curating extraterrestrial matter is becoming an urgent question. In this conversation, historian of science Charlotte Bigg will explore the long history of how scientists have preserved, classified, and interpreted planetary materials. From the geological collections of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris to the emerging Centre national de la matière extraterrestre (CNME), Bigg traces the ways scientific institutions have shaped humanity’s evolving relationship to the cosmos. In conversation with Claire Isabel Webb, Director of Future Humans at the Berggruen Institute, the evening will bring together perspectives on astrobiology, planetary science, and the cultural narratives that shape our search for life beyond Earth. Set in the historic Bradbury Building, a space steeped in cinematic visions of the future, this salon invites guests to consider what it means to hold another world in our hands.

About Professor Bigg: Professor Charlotte Bigg of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales is the 2024–2025 Dornsife-EHESS Visiting Professor at USC, in residence April 2025 and hosted by the USC Dornsife Visual Studies Research Institute and the USC Dornsife Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life. Charlotte Bigg is a permanent research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris. After earning degrees in history and history and philosophy of science from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, she worked at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and at ETH Zurich. She has published widely on the social and cultural history of the chemical, physical, and astronomical sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a transnational perspective. Her work focuses especially on the visual and material cultures of scientific practice and their circulation among a range of audiences. She is currently co-PI of two projects, one focussing on the history of graphic design in the humanities and social sciences in the second half of the twentieth century, and another on the history of French colonial photographic archives. She is also currently working on the history of exploring, curating, and exhibiting geological collections.

This event is presented by the Berggruen Institute in collaboration with the USC Levan Institute for the Humanities; Visual Studies Research Institute; and the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life. RSVPs required: https://events.berggruen.org/_kz394

About the USC Dornsife-EHESS Partnership: USC Dornsife has a multi-year scholarly cooperation agreement with the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS; School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences). The Dornsife-EHESS Partnership, housed in the Levan Institute for the Humanities, aims to build ties between scholars at the two institutions and to support collaborations in research and teaching. It involves a program for doctoral students and another for tenured faculty with primary appointments in Dornsife. The program director is Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (Professor of History, Spatial Sciences, and Law). Queries can be directed to him at ehesspartnership@usc.edu. For more information on the Dornsife-EHESS partnership, click here. 

Image: Auguste Biard, Panorama de la baie de la Madeleine au Spitzberg, c. 1840. Painting adorning the entrance of the Geology and Mineralogy Gallery of the Natural History National Museum in Paris. Courtesy of Léo Becka.