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Academic Conferences

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Louisiana State University
Discover Day

Louisiana State University's annual undergraduate conference, LSU Discover Day, showcases the research and creative works completed by undergraduate students across all majors and from any accredited college or university. This one day event allows for students to present their work through poster, oral, art, performance, and visual display presentations. 

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Flowers and Femininity: Sex, Women, and the Botanical Sciences

A study in the effects of developmental understanding of sex through botany on the gender roles and social notions of inferiority and superiority.

This paper explores the discovery and developmental understanding of plant sexuality, sex, and gender roles during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, emphasizing key botanical works and their social implications. It highlights the importance of scientific botanical works including that of the so-called “Father of Botany” is Theophrastus of Eressus, Nehemiah Grew’s The Anatomy of Plants (1676), Carl Linneaus’ Systema Naturae (1758), and Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man, and Selection Related to Sex (1871). Additionally, the roles of Enlightenment thinking, female education, and changing perceptions of gender roles both in the public and private spheres. The role of female botanical illustrators has been well documented and gained more appreciation and recognition for their contributions to the field of the botanical sciences. However, the botanical sciences' effects on human understandings of sexuality and the gender roles and societal changes which came from these revelations is not so often studied. In this paper I cover the change in modes of speaking about sexuality, effects on the education of women and children, gender roles and choosing of life and reproductive partners, the ways in which women used these new concepts in floriculture such as the Victorian Language of the flowers, and the representational nature of plants by women and society: art, literature, poetry, botanical illustration. The evolving discourse on human and plant sexuality illustrates both the challenging and reinforcing of gender norms, contributing to a broader understanding of gender and sexuality in society.

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