CFP: Biocultures: Science, Technology, Culture, Humanity (grad) (7/1/07; 11/16/07-11/17/07)

full name / name of organization: 
Cynthia Barounis
contact email: 

BIOCULTURES >science >technology >culture >humanity

Graduate Student Conference
University of Illinois at Chicago
November 16-17, 2007

Keynote speakers:
Judith Halberstam
Lennard J. Davis

In the 1950s, C.P. Snow saw a fundamental split between the "two
cultures" of science and the humanities. But in recent years this split
has faded, with theorists like Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway as well
as writers like Samuel Delaney and Octavia Butler examining what "the
human" is in a world where recent biological and technological
developments have profoundly shaken our assumptions about identity and
power. At the same time, interdisciplinary work in fields like
bioethics, gender studies, disability studies and critical race theory
has begun to bridge this divide, offering up new ways of theorizing the
body and its relationship to medical, cultural, and political knowledge.
Putting projects like these in dialogue with one other, this conference
seeks to create an interdisciplinary discourse that participates in the
emergence of biocultures - the intellectual space where the humanities
and the sciences converge.

We invite presentations on biocultural issues from scholars and
professionals from all disciplines. Papers may address, but are in no
way limited to, the following:

> posthumanism
> cosmetic surgery/body modification
> cognitive mapping
> prosthesis
> eugenics/phrenology/scientific racism
> psychiatric illnesses (post-traumatic stress, OCD, etc.)
> the science of sexual deviance (sexology, the "gay gene," etc.)
> medical technologies
> anthropology vs. genetics
> birth control and reproductive rights
> the human/animal boundary
> psychiatry & brain science
> transgenderism, transexuality & intersexuality
> literary & filmic representations of science and medicine
> architecture / the built environment
> biopower/biopolitics
> postmodern warfare
> nanotechnology
> cybercultures
> eco-feminism
> disability studies
> bioethics

For additional information and updates, visit our conference website at:
http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/biocultures/

This conference is part of Project Biocultures, an ongoing effort
dedicated to exploring new ways of thinking about the intersections
between the human and the technological. More information about Project
Biocultures can be found at: http://www.biocultures.org/index2.php

Please send abstracts of 250-350 words to projectbiocultures_at_gmail.com
by July 1, 2007.

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Received on Sat Mar 03 2007 - 16:51:59 EST

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