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Darwin Talk to Kick Off Feminism and Science Series October 3
According to Wilson, like most of Charles Darwin’s work, Expression
of Emotion in Man and Animals reads—to the modern eye—as much
less Darwinian than Lamarckian (a reference to Jean Baptiste de Monet
de Lamarck [1744–1829], a French naturalist who championed the
theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics). Through an examination
of Darwin’s commitment to certain aspects of Lamarckianism and
his emphasis on the particularities of neurophysiology—reflex action
and the psychobiology of trembling and blushing—Wilson will argue
that Darwin’s own evolutionary speculations are more unconventional
than one might suspect from reading high profile, neo-Darwinian commentaries.
On Wednesday, October 4, Wilson will give a faculty seminar titled
“ ‘In Some Ways We Are Emotional Lizards’: On Neurology,
Affect, and Evolution.” This event, which will be held at 10 am
in the library’s Stimson Room, is primarily for Five College faculty;
however, the department will accept applications from a limited number
of graduate and advanced undergraduate students and research associates
affiliated with the Five Colleges. Advance registration is required
for all participants, and everyone who attends will be expected to do
background reading. Preregistration is not required for the October 3 talk, which is free
and open to the public. To sign up for Elizabeth Wilson’s faculty
seminar please notify Pat Serio
by Tuesday, September 26. Participants will be sent a copy of Wilson’s
article through campus mail. A faculty seminar such as Wilson’s
will follow each public talk in the feminism and science series. The
seminars have been designed to encourage in-depth multi/inter/transdisciplinary
conversation. Inquiries about the series should be directed to Karen
Barad or Pat Serio. Elizabeth Wilson is a research fellow in the Research Institute for
Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia.
She is the author of Neural Geographies: Feminism and the Microstructure
of Cognition (Routledge 1998), and the editor of a special issue of
Australian Feminist Studies (April 1999) on feminist science studies.
Her Ph.D. is in psychology, and her research interests are in contemporary
critical theory (deconstruction, queer theory, feminism), the cognitive
and neurological sciences, critical psychology, psychoanalysis, and
evolutionary theory. The provocative thesis of her current project is
that the neurological sciences can contribute effectively to contemporary
feminist and cultural theories of embodiment, subjectivity, and sexuality.
The series will continue February 6 with a public talk by Charis Thompson, a visiting assistant professor at Harvard University in the history of science and women’s studies departments who writes on reproductive technologies, feminist science studies, and environmental science. A lecture by MHC’s own Karen Barad, professor of women’s studies and philosophy who earned her Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics, will round out the series with a lecture March 6. Barad’s research has focused on physics and philosophy. |
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MHC’s Women’s Studies Program has launched a new speaker
series, Feminism + Science: Neural Geographies, Digital Anatomies, and
Reproductive Choreographies, which will debut Tuesday, October 3, with
a public talk by psychologist Elizabeth Wilson. She will discuss “Trembling,
Blushing: Darwin’s Nervous System” at 4 pm in Mary Woolley
Hall’s New York Room. In addition to Wilson, this inaugural series
will feature two feminist scholars whose research is contributing to
a reconfiguration of the terrain of feminist science studies. Says Karen
Barad, chair of the Women’s Studies Program, “The premise
of this series is that feminist science studies is a mutually productive,
complex, respectful, provocative, and challenging conversation engaging
science and feminist scholarship.”