Universität Wien
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240202 VU Topics of Gender Studies (2015W)

Geschlecht und Wissen: Leben, Tod und Macht

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Continuous assessment of course work

Please read texts and answer questions, which are on Moodle, for the first lectures and bring the answers to class sessions.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 50 participants
Language: German

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Gender and Science: Life, Death, and Power

  • Saturday 10.10. 09:45 - 16:30 Hörsaal 16 Hauptgebäude, Hochparterre, Stiege 5
  • Tuesday 13.10. 08:00 - 11:15 Hörsaal 16 Hauptgebäude, Hochparterre, Stiege 5
  • Wednesday 14.10. 08:00 - 11:15 Hörsaal 16 Hauptgebäude, Hochparterre, Stiege 5
  • Saturday 12.12. 09:45 - 16:30 Hörsaal 16 Hauptgebäude, Hochparterre, Stiege 5
  • Wednesday 16.12. 08:00 - 11:15 Hörsaal 16 Hauptgebäude, Hochparterre, Stiege 5
  • Wednesday 13.01. 08:00 - 11:15 Hörsaal 16 Hauptgebäude, Hochparterre, Stiege 5

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Does the gender of scientists affect the kind of knowledge that is produced? Do women make "good" scientists? How have scientific ways of knowing produced, rather than only observed, categories of humans, nonhumans, and the differences among beings? What effect do cultural norms, including language, have on the kinds of knowledge scientists can produce? How do dubious forms of scientific practice like eugenics come to be seen as valid?

The first part of this course is an introduction to a feminist, postcolonial, decolonizing and anti-racist critique of science: From the outset, feminist studies of science and technology have been focused on critically questioning the nature of knowledge production, and writing stories of how scientific knowledge is produced that center analyses of power relationships and theorize the standpoint of knowers. These scholars have also looked at the ways in which processes of scientific practice in specific times/places have classified the world, including humans, and these very classifications, e.g. the binary gender system, have impacted who can be seen as able to legitimately practice science.

The second part deals with questions about making live and letting die (biopolitics and necropolitics) amongst others with the current example of genetic research. When Foucault developed the notions of biopolitics and governmentality in the 1970s, he was describing a form of political reason emerging in the 18th century that was closely associated with the formation of the nation-state and modernity. Biopolitics (which works with biopower) names a form of social control that is different from, but also coexists with sovereign (monarchal) power. This multidimensional transformation evolved along with the emergence of disciplining of individual bodies and, importantly, targeted certain populations as the focus of governmental actions (bio-politics). Specific forms of knowledge and assumptions of normalcy were bound up with this transformation of power. Examples of contemporary genetic research are illustrating their bio-political power over gender and race.
In the conclusion an insight in the most recent tendencies in feminist science theory is given: in New Materialisms (Karen Barad).

Assessment and permitted materials

Attendance is required, class participation, individual mini presentation and a written exam.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

• Introduce the contemporary field of feminist science and technology studies and feminist critique of science and technology studies with a focus on gender, sexuality and race, whereby feminist history of science is also considered.
• Learn vocabulary and ways of thinking critically about academic and scientific knowledge and science (including about gender binary patterns of thought and interpretation and hierarchical assumptions of normalcy.
• Gain critical writing and thinking skills.

Examination topics

Lectures by the teacher with Power Point, Prezi and diverse media: videos, audio, images. Blended Learning with tasks and materials on Moodle.
Interactive tasks in pair/group/class work, World Café, expert groups, individual short presentations.
Close-Readings of texts with questions and analytical schemes.
With enough time for discussions and Q & A.

Reading list

Barad, Karen: On Touching-The Inhuman that therefore I am. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 23 (3), 2012. S. 206-223.
Barad, Karen: Agentieller Realismus, Berlin, 2012.
Barad, Karen: Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham. 2007.
Barad, Karen: “Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28 (3), 2003. S. 801-831.
Barad, Karen: Meeting the Universe Halfway: Realism and Social Constructivism Without Contradiction. Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science Eds Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson, Dordrecht, 1996. S. 161-94.
Bhabha, Homi K.: Die Verortung der Kultur, Tübingen, 2000.
Bland, L und Doan, L (eds): Sexology in culture: Labeling bodies and desires, Chicago, 1998.
Butler, Judith: Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of »Sex«, New York/London, 1993.
Butler, Judith: Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York/London, 1990.
Butler, Judith: Haß spricht. Zur Politik des Performativen, Berlin, 1998.
Daston, Loraine und Gallison, Peter: The Image of Objectivity, Representations, 40, Fall 1992. S. 81-128.
Dolphijn, Rick und van der Tuin, Iris: New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies, Open Humanities Press, 2012. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001 (07.05.2013).
Foucault, Michel: Dispositive der Macht: über Sexualität, Wissen und Wahrheit, Berlin, 1978.
Foucault, Michel: Sexualität und Wahrheit 1: der Wille zum Wissen, Frankfurt am Main, 1983.
Fraser, Nancy: Widerspenstige Praktiken. Macht, Diskurs, Geschlecht, Frankfurt am Main, 1994.
Haraway, Donna: Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature, London, 1998.
Harding, Sandra (ed): The postcolonial science and technology studies reader, Durham, 2011.
Harding, Sandra (ed): The „racial“ economy of science: Toward a democratic future, Bloomington, 1993.
Harding, Sandra: Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from women’s lives, Ithaca, 1991.
Harding, Sandra: The science question in feminism, Ithaca, 1986.
Keller, Evelyn Fox: Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death, New York, 1995.
Kirkup, Gil/Janes, Linda/Woodward, Kathryn/Hovenden, Fiona (Hg.): The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader, London, 2000.
Laqueur, Thomas: Auf den Leib geschrieben, Frankfurt/Main, 1992.
Martin, Emily: The Woman in the body: a cultural analysis of reproduction, Boston, 1987.
Mbembe, Achille “Nekropolitik” in M. Pieper et al Biopolitik – in der Debatte, Wiesbaden 2011.
Rabinow, Paul und Rose, Nikolas: Biopower today, BioSocieties (1), 2006. S. 195-217.
Roberts, Dorothy: Race, gender, and genetic technologies: A new reproductive dystopia? Signs 34 (4), 2009. S. 783-804.
Schiebinger, Londa (ed.): Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering, Stanford, 2008.
Schiebinger, Londa (ed.): Feminism and the Body, New York, 2000.

Association in the course directory

MA Gender Studies (Version 2013): PM Themenfelder;

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:40