Medical researchers have been making headlines with a surprising series of findings about men and reproduction. It turns out that the health status of men’s bodies prior to conception can directly affect the health of their children. As a result, many of the warnings that women receive about pregnancy – regarding their age and watching … Read more
Jennifer Reich, Associate Professor of Sociology University of Colorado-Denver Beth A. Tarini, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Michigan In this presentation across disciplines, sociologist of medicine and gender Jennifer Reich (Ph.D.) and pediatric researcher Beth Tarini (M.D.) will talk about vaccination policy and newborn screening for genetic conditions as moments of negotiation between mothering, government, and … Read more
Cryopreservation enables storage and preservation of bio-specimens—including those taken from indigenous peoples’ bodies, often within earlier ethical and racial regimes—into times and spaces beyond those inhabited by the (once) living bodies. New bioethical responses are afoot. But when they emerge from non-indigenous institutions and philosophical terrain they cannot fully address indigenous peoples’ interpretations and ethical … Read more
If values are ubiquitous in science, and I think they are, then we can no longer use the presence of values to discriminate between good and bad science. Some scientific hypotheses can be empirically well-supported and value-laden. How? Much depends on the nature of empirical support, and the definition of values. I have argued that … Read more
Neglected questions about women, gender, and sexuality have been on the archaeological agenda since the late 1980s, and gender-inclusive archaeology has transformed what we know about the past. But some of its strongest advocates deny that they are engaged in feminist scholarship or in any way influenced by feminist politics. Professor Wylie questions their conviction … Read more
Kristen Springer, Associate Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University Stacey A. Ritz, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine, McMaster University Sarah Richardson, Professor of the History of Science and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University Feminist scholars have called for engagements with the biological sciences, but what would … Read more
This talk explores how science and religion come together in in contemporary Hindu nationalism to create a very particular and powerful biopolitical imaginary. Religious nationalists have selectively, and strategically, used rhetoric from both science and Hinduism, modernity and orthodoxy, western and eastern thought to build a powerful but potentially dangerous vision of a Hindu nation. … Read more