Paris Pin-Yu Chen

Supervisors: Dr Egbert Klautke and Dr Mart Kuldkepp

Present status: PhD candidate

Working title of thesis: Race Science, Eugenics, and Student Fraternities: Racial Ideologies and Radical Politics in Estonia, 1900-1940

Research: My research project investigates the role of student fraternities and societies in the dissemination and appropriation of racial and eugenic ideologies in early-twentieth-century and interwar Estonia. It highlights how student organisations, characterised by life-long membership and close-knit network, allowed eugenic-minded intellectuals to advance their agenda both on organisational and national levels. It also explores how these intellectuals negotiated transatlantic racial science and eugenics with Estonian political and demographic realities.

Research interests: early 20th-century intellectual history; right radicalism; nationalism; race science; eugenics; Estonia.

Seminar Series Affliation: Study of Central Europe Seminar Series