ESST Specialization at Linköping University

Science, Technology and Gender:

Medical technologies of Sex and Gender

The three specializations offered* by Linköping University during the Spring 2009 term are:

Social Perspectives on Technological Risk - Technology, Environment and Risk
Technopolitics - The Politics of Innovation, Media, Infrastructures and Climate change
Science, technology and gender: Medical Technologies of Sex and Gender

In addition, Linköping is offering two separate courses during the spring term called 'Thesis design' and 'Methods for the thesis' which will cover the basics of thesis writing (including formation of a thesis outline) and research methodology, respectively. These courses will run parallel to the specialization courses. They will be required for Linköping students and open (and recommended) to other ESST students studying in Linköping.

*Linköping reserves the right to withdraw a course offering if there are less than 5 students registered.

General description

This course will present a gendered perspective on medical technologies, in particular reproductive technologies. It will look at discourses of medical technologies and understandings of sex and gender in medicine. Discourses and practices (are these different things?) of sexuality, heteronormativity and intersexuality will also be analysed and critiqued. Topics covered include: Gender/sex, Medical science's understandings of sex and gender, Reproductive technologies, Contraceptives, Cyborg babies, Discourses on and practices regarding sexuality and reproduction, heteronormativity, intersexuality, Viagra, gender and sexuality.

The course will meet once a week for a two hour seminar, at which students are expected to activity participate and lead in a discussion of the literature and ideas, through various methods of presentation and debate. Student's will be assigned specific articles that they will be expected to present during the seminars, but they are expected to have read and be discursive with all articles before each seminar. At the end of the course, students should be able to show understanding of feminist critiques of medicine and medical technologies. They should be able to demonstrate knowledge of the historical and cultural aspects of medical science, and specifically write about gender and medical technologies.

This course is also meant to teach/encourage the skills of independent study and research, in preparation for their thesis work and future academic activities. Students should therefore also be able to present material, debates and research using different academic formats.

Core literature (subject to change)

Barad, K. (1996) 'Meeting the Universe Halfway: Realism and Social Constructivism without contradiction' in L.H. Nelson and J. Nelson (eds.) Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, 161-194. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Berg and Mol, 1998 Differences in Medicine Durham: Duke University Press
Cartwright, L. (1998) 'A Cultural Anatomy of the Visible Human Project', in P. Treichler, L. Cartwright and C. Penley (eds) The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science. New York: New York University Press. Pp 21-43
Castro-Vazquez, Genaro. 2006. The Politics of Viagra: Gender, Dysfunction and Reproduction in Japan. Body and Society. 12(2) 109-129
Cussins, C. (1998) 'Ontological Choreography: Agency for Women Patients in an Infertility Clinic' in Berg and Mol, 1998 Differences in Medicine Duke University Press pp166-201
Davis-Floyd, R and, J. Dumit (eds) 1998 Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-tots. London: Routledge. p40-66
Dugdale, Anni 2000 Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices, Situated Knowledges, and the Making of Women's Bodies. Australian Feminist Studies Vol 15 No 32, pp. 165 - 176.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000) Sexing the Body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
Fishman, Jennifer. 2004. Manufacturing Desire: The Commodification of Female Sexual Dysfunction. Social Studies of Science. 43(2): 187-218
Foucault, M. (1977) The History of Sexuality
Johnson, E., (2005) 'The Ghost of Anatomies Past: Simulating the one-sex body in modern medical training' Feminist Theory. 6(2)
Jordanova, L. (1999) Nature Displayed: Gender, Science and Medicine 1760-1820. London: Longman.
Kessler, S. J. (1994) 'The Medical Construction of Gender', in A. C. Herrmann, A. J. Stewart (eds) Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Oxford: Westview press. p218-237
Kraus, C. (2000) 'Naked Sex in Exile: On the Paradox of the "Sex Question" in Feminism and in Science', National Women's Studies Association Journal. 12(3): 151-177.
Laqueur, T. (1990) Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. London: Harvard University Press.
Laqueur, T. (2003) 'Sex in the Flesh', Isis 94(2): 300-306.
Loe, M. (2004) Sex and the Senior Woman: Pleasure and Danger in the Viagra Era. Sexualities Vol 7(3): 303-326
Maines, Rachel 1999. The Technology of Orgasm John Hopkins University Press
Mamo, Laura and Jennifer R. Fishman. 2001 Potency in All the Right Places: Viagra as a Technology of the Gendered Body. Body and Society 7(4) 13-35
Marshal, Barbara and Katz, Stephen, 2002 Forever Functional: Sexual Fitness and the Ageing Male Body. Body and Society 8(4) pp: 43-70
Martin, E. (1992) The woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston: Beacon Press.
Moore, L. J., Clarke, A. (1995) 'Clitoral Conventions and Transgressions: Graphic Representations in Anatomy Texts, c.1900-1991', in Feminist Studies 21(2): 255-301.
Oudshoorn, N. (1994) Beyond the Natural Body: an archeology of sex hormones. London: Routledge
Oudshoorn, N. (2003) The Male Pill: A Biography of a Technology in the Making. Durham: Duke University Press.
Reidy, Jamie, (2005) The Hard Sell: The evolution of a Viagra salesman. Andrews McMeel Publishing
Roberts C. 2004. Sex, race and 'unnatural' difference: tracking the chiastic logic of menopause-related discourses, European Journal of Women's Studies, 11(1), 27-44
Roberts C. 2002. 'Successful aging' with hormone replacement therapy: It may be sexist, but what if it works? Science as Culture 11(1), 39-59
Rosenfeld and Faircloth (2006) Medicalized Masculinities Temple University Press
Saetnan, Oudshoorn, Kirejczyk (2000) Bodies of technology, women's involvement with reproductive medicine. Ohio State
Schiebinger, L. (1993/2004) Nature's body: Gender in the making of Modern Science. Boston: Beacon Press.
Schiebinger, L. (2003) 'Skelettestreit', Isis 94(2): 307-313.
Shaw, M. et al (2004) Gender and age inequity in the provision of coronary revascularisation in England in the 1990s: is it getting better? Social Science and Medicine 59: 2499-2507
Stolberg, M. (2003) 'A Woman Down to Her Bones. The Anatomy of Sexual Difference in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries', Isis 94(2): 274-299.
'Viagra Culture' 2006 Special issue of Sexualities Vol 9(3)
Wyer et al. 2001 Women, Science, and Technology Routledge

Language of instruction

English

Number of students

5-15

Example thesis topics

Menstruation as a sign of healthiness, fertility and womanhood. A study on views on menstruation among Swedish young women

Beating technology: Monitoring the self with fitness technology

Recommended courses to take

Students should take the courses 'Thesis design' and 'Methods for the thesis' offered by the department during the spring term.

Instructors

Alma Persson

Exchange office information

www.liu.se/education/exchange/exchange

Coordinator

Alma Persson, almpe@tema.liu.se

Home | The Master Programme | The Programme Universities | The Association