ISABEL JACOBS – HISTORY ON THE EDGE

On 8 April 2026, as part of the History on the Edge lecture series, we hosted a new lecture at the Institute of Contemporary History.

The speaker, Isabel Jacobs, presented the lecture “Webs of Life: A History of Symbiogenesis from Boris Kozo-Polyansky to Lynn Margulis”, exploring the development of the concept of symbiogenesis and its relevance for understanding evolution and contemporary environmental challenges.

The lecture highlighted the lesser-known legacy of Soviet evolutionary theory and showed how Boris Kozo-Polyansky, already in the 1920s, understood cooperation as a key driver of evolutionary change. His ideas were later expanded by Lynn Margulis, whose work on symbiosis significantly shaped modern understandings of life as an interconnected network rather than a hierarchical tree.

The speaker also addressed the broader implications of these theories – from critiques of competition-based evolutionary models to the potential for developing a new conceptual language for thinking about solidarity, cooperation, and the ecological crisis.

The event was held in English, both in person at the Institute and via Zoom.

In this post, we are sharing photo highlights.