Course Description:
In this seminar, we will investigate socially and historically informed critiques of theoretical methods and practices of the sciences. We will ask if/how feminist theoretical and political concerns make a critical contribution to science studies. The course will begin with philosophical and methodological critiques and will move onto historical and field specific topics, such as reproductive biology; biological constructions of gender, sex, and race, environmental science and ecofeminism, studies of sexualities, reproductive technologies, and physics.
Course Requirements:
a. Seminar participation and presentation.
Regular and informed participation in the weekly seminars is required. Reading assignments for each seminar must be completed prior to that seminar. Bring two copies of questions and reflections on the reading to class for discussion. One (or more) student(s) will be asked to be the main discussant(s) for each topic. Student discussants will begin class discussion by presenting the major points of readings, followed by one or two critical observations, and some questions for class discussion.
b. Research term paper.
There is only one writing assignment for this course, 15-20 pages long. Any topic related to issues at the intersection of science and feminism is acceptable. Write a paper proposal sketching out some of the issues you hope to cover and an outline for your paper. In addition, you are required to do some preliminary library research and include an annotated bibliography. This assignment should be 5-7 pages long. Next, you will write a rough draft of your paper and will make a class presentation about it. This draft should be at least 10-15 pages long.
Readings:
Longino, Helen. Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry.
Keller, Evelyn Fox. Secrets of life, secrets of death.
Sturgeon, Noel. Ecofeminist natures: Race, gender, feminist theory, and political action.
All readings marked (R) will be made available to the class.
Week 1: Introduction
Week 2:
Traweek, Sharon. 1993. An introduction to cultural and social studies of sciences and technologies. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 17. 3-25. (R)
Longino, Helen. 1990. Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, chapters 1-5.
Week 3:
Laqueur, Thomas. 1986. Orgasm, generation, and the politics of reproductive biology. Representations, 14, 1-41. (R)
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1993.The five sexes: Why male and female are not enough. The Sciences, March/April, 20-24. (R)
Harding, Sandra. 1998. Is science multicultural? Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chapters 4 and 5. (R)
Week 4:
Rouse, Joseph. 1996. Feminism and the social construction of scientific knowledge. In Lynn H Nelson and J Nelson, eds. Feminism, science, and the philosophy of science. Dordecht: Kluwer Academic Pub, 195-215. (R)
Harding, Sandra. 1998. From feminist empiricism to feminist standpoint epistemologies. In The science question in feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 136-162. (R)
Haraway, Donna. 1991. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspectives. In Simians, cyborgs, and women. New York: Routledge, 183-202. (R)
Richards, Janet Radcliffe. 1996. Why feminist epistemology isn't. In P. Levitt and M. Lewis eds. The flight from science and reason. NY: New York Academy of Sciences, 385-412. (R)
Week 5:
Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1992. Secrets of life, secrets of death: Essays on language, gender, and science. NY: Routledge. Introduction and chapters 1 and 4.
Richards, Evelleen, and John Schuster. 1989. The feminine method as myth and accounting resources: A challenge to gender studies and social studies of science., and responses from E. F. Keller and rebuttal by authors. Social Studies of Science, 19, 697-729. (R)
Koertge, Noretta. 1998. Feminism: A mixed blessing to women in science. In Angela Pattatucci, ed. Women in science: Meeting career challenges. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 189-202. (R)
Week 6:
Hekman, Susan. 1997. Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited. Comments and her response. Signs, 22: 2, 341-402. (R)
Daston, Lorraine. 1992. Objectivity and the escape from perspective. Social Studies of Science, 22, 597-618. (R)
Week 7:,br>
** Paper proposal and bibliography due in class **
Schiebinger, Londa. The anatomy of difference: Race and sex in eighteenth-century science. In Nature's body: Gender in the making of modern science. Boston: Beacon Press, chapter 4. (R)
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1995. Gender, race, and nation: The comparative anatomy of 'Hottentot' women in Europe, 1815-1817. In Jacqueline Urla and Jennifer Terry, eds. Deviant Bodies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 19-48. (R)
Stepan, Nancy. 1993. Race and gender: The role of analogy in science. In S. Harding, ed. The "racial" economy of science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 359-376. (R)
Week 8:
Arluke, Arnold, and Boria Sax. 1995. The Nazi treatment of animals and people. In Lynda Birke and Ruth Hubbard, eds. Reinventing biology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 228-260. (R)
Haraway, Donna. 1980. Primate visions. NY: Routledge, chapters 3 and 11. (R)
Haraway, Donna. 1997. Universal donors in a vampire culture: It's all in the family. Biological kinship categories in the 20th C. United States. In Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleManMeets_OncoMouse. NY: Routledge, 213-265. (R)
Hammonds, Evelyn. 1997. New technologies of race. In Jennifer Terry and Melodie Calvert, eds. Processed lives: Gender and technology in everyday life. NY: Routledge, 107-122. (R)
Nelkin, Dorothy, and M Susan Lindee. The media-ted gene: Stories of gender and race. In Deviant bodies, 387-402. (R)
Week 9:
Harding, Sandra. 1991. Why "physics" is a bad model for physics. In Whose science? Whose knowledge?: Thinking from women's lives. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, chapter 4. (R)
Barad, Karen. 1995. A feminist approach to teaching quantum mechanics. In Sue Rosser, ed. Teaching the majority. NY: Teachers College Press, 43-75. (R)
Keller, Evelyn Fox. From secrets of life to secrets of death. In Secrets of life, secrets of death, op.cit., chapter 2.
Sokal, Alan. 1996. Transgressing the boundaries. Social Text, 46/47, 217-252 .
Sokal, Alan. 1996. A physicist experiments with cultural studies. Lingua Franca, May/June,62-64. (R)
Week 10:
** First draft of term paper (plus proposal/bibliography) due in class. **
Sturgeon, Noel. 1997. Ecofeminist natures: Race, gender, feminist theory, and political action. NY: Routledge, chapters 1,2,4, and 6.
Merchant, Carolyn. 1996. Gaia: Ecofeminism and the earth and Earthcare: Women and the American environmental movement. In Earthcare, women and the environment. NY: Routledge, chapters 1 and 7. (R)
Warren, Karen. 1997. Taking empirical data seriously: An ecofeminist philosophical perspective. In Karen Warren, ed. Ecofeminism: Women, culture, nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 3-20. (R)
Week 11:
Weisberg, D Kelly. 1996. Reproductive technology and adoption: Introduction. In Applications of feminist legal theory to women's lives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1041-1061. (R)
Wikler, Norma Juliet. Society's response to the new reproductive technologies: The feminist perspective', ibid, 1080-1091. (R)
Andrews, Lori B. Surrogate motherhood: The challenge for feminists, ibid, 1092-1104. (R)
Hartouni, Valerie. 1997. Replicating the single self: Some thoughts on cloning and cultural identity. In Cultural conceptions: On reproductive technologies and the remaking of life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 110-132. (R)
Week 12:
Longino, Helen. Research on sex differences. In Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry, op. cit., chapter 6.
Week 13:
Kessler, Suzanne. 1997. Creating good-looking genitals in the service of gender. In Martin Dubermann, ed. A queer world. NY: New York University Press, 153-173. (R)
Hausman, Bernice. 1995. Changing sex: Transsexualism, technology, and the idea of gender. Durham: Duke University Press, Introduction and chapters 1 and 5. (R)
Shapiro, Judith. 1991. Transsexualism: Reflections on the persistence of gender and the mutability of sex In Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub, eds. Body guards: The cultural politics of gender ambiguity. NY: Routledge, 248-279. (R)
