Handling the body, taking control: technologies of the gendered body

The aim of the 10^th European Spring School [ESS] “Handling the body, taking control: Technologies of the gendered body” is to encompass a diversity of themes around the axis of the historical construction of the gendered body as a locus of both empowerment and disempowerment and the place of the natural philosophical and biomedical disciplines in shaping the political and subjective dimensions of human experience. The School is particularly concerned with exploring how diverse intellectual and social movements have struggled to gain authority and cultural hegemony over women´s bodies by way of defining sexual difference and the gendered body. The ESS is envisaged as a space for junior scholars to discuss their current work-in-progress with colleagues in a creative and supportive environment. As in previous sessions, this ESS is structured in four key-note lectures and a research workshop. The keynote lectures will cover areas such as sexual practices, the language of physiology, visual representations and feminist definitions of health expertise. Confirmed speakers include:

• Delphine Gardey (University of Geneva)
• Agata Ignaciuk (University of Warsaw)
• Barbara Orland (University of Basel)
• María Jesús Santesmases (Institute of Philosophy, CSIC)

The workshop will be organized in three thematic paper sessions and one poster session. All contributions –in both paper and poster format– will be commented by participants, lecturers and organizers of the School. Sessions and discussions will be conducted in English. The ESS  “Handling the body, taking control: Technologies of the gendered body” is open to graduate students, early career scholars, professionals, and activists concerned about past and present approaches to the gendered body and the analysis of the epistemological frameworks that feminism has developed to analyze them. Participants would be expected to address such issues as:

• Expert knowledge and experiences of pregnancy and birth
• Abortion and contraceptive cultures
• Feminist activism and body technologies
• Feminist epistemologies of the body
• Gendered biopolitics
• Illness, sickness, disease
• Medical constructions of sexual difference
• Patologization and depatologization of the female body
• Sexual education and women’s health knowledge
• Sexual violence, perceptions of harrassment and rape
• Sexualities, female sexuality and asexuality
• Visual and textual discourses of the gendered body
• Women’s sexual desire and medical knowledge on female sexuality
• Women’s versus medical representations of the female body

Please send proposals to discuss your research (around 300 words) before October 30 to Montserrat Cabré and Teresa Ortiz-Gómez at: 10thess2019@gmail.com A limited number of grants will be available for graduate students and early career researchers. Timeline October 30: Deadline for submitting proposals November 20: Communication of accepted proposals January 30: Final program announcement February 1: Registration Opens May 10: Registration Closes May 23: School starts Organized by the Catalan Society for the History of Science and the Institut Menorquí d’Estudis Coordinated by Montserrat Cabré and Teresa Ortiz-Gómez.