This Friday, the Powell Family Cinema will be home to the second annual Lauren B. Dachs Science and Society Symposium, entitled “Protecting Great Apes: How Science and Ethics Contribute to Conservation.” The free daylong event will explore the relationship between humans and other great apes as well as current issues of ape conservation.

The conference will host five scholars with experience in a broad range of topics surrounding primate behavior and conservation in both the United States and Africa. According to its organizer, Philosophy department Chair Lori Gruen, the symposium intends to provide a comprehensive look at the role of humans in great ape conservation and ape-human relationships through the scholars’ work.

“I organized the symposium to bring together some of the leading experts who do research on conservation specifically with great apes so that together we can see the different ways that ethical scientific studies can inform human-primate interactions,” Gruen said.

The symposium, sponsored by the Dachs Chair and cosponsored by Wesleyan Animal Studies and the Ethics in Society Project, features lectures from anthropologists from Iowa State University and Washington University in St. Louis as well as a hominoid psychologist from Duke University. A researcher from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the president and director of Chimp Haven, a chimpanzee conservatory in Louisiana, will also speak. The lectures will focus on non-human ape behavior as well as conservation in both sanctuaries and natural habitats.

In addition to Gruen, Director of the College of the Environment Barry Chernoff and Associate Professor of Psychology Hilary Barth will each give brief introductions. Discussion sessions will also follow each lecture.

Gruen began organizing the symposium in fall 2010 with the support of Professor of Biology Laura Grabel, who is currently the Lauren B. Dachs Chair.

According to Gruen, her interest in primate conservation arose out of her work in animal ethics. In March 2011, she published “Ethics and Animals: An Introduction,” where she investigated current issues involving human-animal relations.

Gruen is also currently teaching a course entitled “Primate Encounters,” which examines the philosophical implications of the close evolutionary link between humans and other apes.

According to Gruen, “Protecting Great Apes” will provide a basis for students to begin to realize the importance of their relationship to great apes and the implication this relationship has on animal studies more generally.

“This is such a unique event that brings together world-class scientists,” Gruen said. “Both faculty and students are going to leave this symposium with a heightened understanding of our relationship to other apes and the dangers the great apes are facing in our world today, which is not only important for understanding primates but ourselves as well.”