Gender, Generation & Reproduction
Series of Lectures at the Centre of Women’s and Gender Studies, Vienna
University
This follow-up call about „Gender & Generation“ focuses upon interrelations
between genetic engineering and reproduction technologies as well as their
implications for power relations between the sexes. The debate which has
become extremely polarized within feminist discourse shall be conceived in
three dimensions:
1. Constructions of the subject and the body: What role does the postulate
of feminist self-determination play if the control over reproduction is
incumbent in experts? How far do technologies such as IVF confirm the
equation of female identity and motherhood? Does the shifting of boundaries
between nature and technology allow for emancipatory potential?
2. Genderedness of technology: Which concepts of gender stand behind the
seemingly neutral technological possibilities and how are they reflected in
statements that are either optimistic or pessimistic with regard to
technology? Which narratives of patriarchal phantasies of (omni)potence
return in the guise of new technologies?
3. Questions of feminist ethics: Which new inclusions and exclusions are
created by the (im)possibilities of participation in the new technologies?
How does the interplay of race, class and gender take effect? Can prenatal
diagnostics lead to new forms of eugenics, which, with regard to sex selects
the „heterocygote minus-mutant man“ (Friedrich Cramer 1993)? What are the
rights of surrogate mothers and semen donors?
We invite researchers of all disciplines to present their points of view
regarding the above questions for the thematic lecture which is a part of
the introductory module Gender Studies and will take place in the course of
winter term 2004/2005 at Vienna University.
Please send your proposals with a working title and an abstract, your CV and
address via E-Mail to [log in to unmask]
Deadline: 15/07/2004
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