In 1978 the women’s studies journal Signs published a special issue “women, science, and society”–a milestone in the formation of a broad and heterogeneous body of work dedicated to the role of gender in the production, dissemination, and application of “scientific knowledge” and “technology”. This interdisciplinary workshop investigates the history of feminist science and technology studies, situating its emergence and development in the context of second wave feminism, Cold War social science, and critical environmentalism. At the same time, its participants examine for a variety of different fields and research objects, the impact of gendered distributions of labor, of heteronormative images of “nature”, or of ideals of masculinity in the construction of scientists’ bodies and “scientificity” itself. Moreover, they reflect how feminist perspectives provide toolsand spaces for thinking and doing science and technology “otherwise”.Topics of the different panels also include food (science), ecology, and disaster. A special focus will be on intersectional approaches that explore how gender is co-constructed and interacts with other categories and axis of difference and inequality, such as race, age or able-bodiedness, and on queer, as well as post-and decolonial perspectives.
Date: 17- 19th March, Online-Workshop via Zoom, Registration for access: daniel.distelrath{at}uni-wuppertal.de
Programm
March 17
5 pm: Welcome and introduction
Sophie Charlotte Ebert (Equal opportunities & Diversity Staff
Unit, University of Wuppertal)
Volker Remmert (IZWT, University of Wuppertal)
Cécile Stephanie Stehrenberger (IZWT, University of Wuppertal)
5.30-7 pm: Feminist ways of thinking and doing science and technology otherwise
Roundtable discussion with Christine Okoth (University of Warwick), Debottam Saha (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi), Martina Franzen (The Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen), and students from the University of Wuppertal
March 18
9-10.30 am: COVID-19
Chair: Azita Chellappoo, University of Bochum
Martina Franzen (The Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen): “The face of science (communication) in the COVID-19 pandemic”
Elena Marbán Castro (Barcelona Institute for Global Health): “Social determinants of health and the integration of an intersectional gender lens in COVID-19 research”
10.45 am-1 pm: Food (studies) and Hormones
Chair: Agnes Laba, University of Wuppertal
Nina Mackert (University of Leipzig): “Factor 0,8: Gendered Bodies in Calorimetric Science”
Isabella Schwaderer (University of Kiel): “Revolution or Redemption through Slow Food? Trajectories of a Global Grassroots Organization”
Kris Hartmann (University of Heidelberg): “From Neo-Malthusianism to anti-heteronormativity. A discourse history of the contraceptive pill”
2-4.15 pm: Gendered spaces of knowledge production
Chair: Steffi Grundmann, University of Wuppertal
Dania Achermann (IZWT, University of Wuppertal): “Masculinity and Post-World War II Earth-sciences”
Christian Kehrt (TU Braunschweig): “Images of modern „explorers“. Paul-Émile Victor and the French Polar Expeditions in the Cold War”
Andrea Reichenberger (University of Paderborn): “Science, Politics and Ethics: How Women Transformed Philosophy in Western Germany 1945-1990”
4.30-6 pm: Disaster
Chair: Arlette Jappe (IZWT, University of Wuppertal)
Reena Shadaan (York University, Toronto): “’Dipped in Petroleum’: From Petrochemicals to the Nail Salon”
Felicia Henry, (University of Delaware, Newark, DE): “Race, Justice, and Disasters.”
March 19
9-10.45 am: Ecology and Labor
Chair: Jeanne Rosine Abomo (University of Maroua, Cameroon)
Debottam Saha (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi): “Gendered Labour, Ecology, and Knowledge”
Christine Okoth (University of Warwick): “Repurposing, Repetition, and the Form of Sustainability”
Judith Neubauer (University of Wuppertal): “Sustainability, gender, and marketing, 1980-2021”
11 am-1 pm: Feminist (historical) science and technology-studies 1970 2021
Chair: Svetlana Petrova (University of Wuppertal)
Fabian Link (IZWT, University of Wuppertal) and Nelli Kisser (University of Frankfurt): "Donna Haraway and Feminist STS in the late Cold War: Reassembling Science, Technology, and Politics"
Minakshee Rode (Delhi): „The importance of caste and gender in the history of science in India“
Daniel Distelrath (IZWT, University of Wuppertal): “Value judgment, science, and gender”
1.30-3.30 pm: (Alternative) spaces and methods of (emancipatory) knowledge production
Chair: Friederike Kuster, University of Wuppertal
Fabienne André, University of Wuppertal
Ulla Hendrix (University of Duisburg-Essen): The “Open Women’s University” of Wuppertal – Space for Re-thinking Gender between Separatism and Extended Access
Julia Bee (University of Weimar): “Film as apparatus of knowledge production: documentary and feminist perspectives”
Anna Leuschner (IZWT, University of Wuppertal): “Agnotology as a central outcome of feminist science studies”