Public Lectures 2007-2008 - Text Only
Lisa Weasel
Feminism in the Fields: Genes, Gender and the Globalization of GMOs
Tuesday, October 30th, 7:30-9 pm
Fisher Science, Building 33, Room 286
What can feminism tell us about the global debates surrounding agricultural biotechnology? Will biotechnology bring us a second “Green Revolution” that can help solve world hunger? What are the ethical implications involved? How can we promote sustainability in policymaking around agricultural biotechnology? This lecture will present an interdisciplinary feminist analysis of the science of agricultural biotechnology and the global social and ethical debates surrounding genetically modified food. Even if you can’t imagine how feminism might inform agriculture, or you’re not sure how GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and gender intersect, this presentation will definitely leave you with some ‘food for thought.’
Dr. Lisa Weasel received her A.B. magna cum laude in biology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Cambridge University. She is now Associate Professor of Biology at Portland State University in Oregon. Dr. Weasel has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Education, and many private foundations. In 2001, she received a five year CAREER Award from the NSF to support her research on global ethics and equity issues in agricultural biotechnology.
Dr. Joanne Csete
Firelight Foundation, Santa Cruz
A crisis foretold: HIV/AIDS and the rights of children and women in sub-Saharan Africa
Thursday January 17th, 2008
11:10 AM -12:30 PM
Bldg 08- Room 123
A leading human rights activist and scientist, Dr. Csete brings years of experience in Africa, in human rights, and in confronting the AIDS pandemic to describe the current situation of AIDS in Africa and its effects on children and on women. Children’s rights and needs are usually politically easy to address compared to those of other populations affected by AIDS. Given this, she asks why children have fared so badly in Africa’s AIDS crisis. She discusses the key challenges in supporting children’s and women’s rights related to HIV and suggests a number of priority areas for action.
LAURY OAKS
UC Santa Barbara Professor
Pro-Life Feminism
Thursday, February 21st, 11am-12pm
Graphic Arts Bldg. 26, Room 106
What is feminist about pro-life feminism and why should reproductive justice advocates care? Professor Laury Oaks analyzes pro-life feminist claims with particular attention to how the pro-life feminist movement attempts to shape college students' attitudes about abortion and understandings of feminism. Pro-life feminists claim to represent best the interests of younger women and feminism, and demonstrate an anti-abortion strategy framed both as a challenge to and an embracing of the contested field of feminism.
Professor Oaks is Associate Professor of Women's Studies, Anthropology, and Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. She has conducted research on reproductive politics in Japan, the Republic of Ireland, and the United States.
Corinna Kahnke
Reading Re-Unification with Gender Glasses
Thursday, May 29th, 11am to 12pm
Erhart Ag. Bldg. 10, Rm 225
This talk addresses the question of whether the gender debate in German 1990s Popliteratur can also be read as a reaction towards the 1989 reunification of Germany. Christian Kracht’s early Faserland (1995) presents a highly gendered quest for a German identity and more recent examples, such as Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (2002), imply the gendering of re-unification, where a feminine East is overrun by a masculine West. A look at parallels between the East-West binary and the rhetorical construction of sex and gender binaries (in terms of Judith Butler’s work on the performativity of sex and gender) enables us to conclude that the East German-West German binary may also be as much a social construct as gender.
Corrina Kahnke received her Ph.D. in Modern German Literature and Culture in 2007 from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is currently the lecturer in German for the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Cal Poly. Her book chapter “‘Definitely Maybe’—Judith Butler, 90s Popliteratur and the Search for Identity” is forthcoming in A Different Germany: Pop and the Negotiation of German Culture.
Dr. Barbara Katz Rothman
Midwifery and the Politics of Knowledge
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 11:10am-12:00 pm, Erhart Ag. Bldg. 10, Rm 220
We tend to think of the miracle of birth as the making of babies. But midwives understand the miracle of birth to be the making of mothers: strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength. How do midwives in non-medicalized settings organize and conduct their practice to reflect these interests?
Through a Crystal Darkly: The Racial & Gender Politics of the New Genetics
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:10-5:30 pm, Manufacturing Bldg. 36, Rm 106
The much heralded "completion" of the human genome project in the year 2000 raises urgent questions: Do we now have a map of who we are? How will we control the uses of the potentially healing but also likely destructive and highly marketable information genetics brings us? If the history of genetics is one in which scientific knowledge has been used to create and maintain systems of oppression, what role should that history play in our decision making practices about new genetic technologies?
