Theory Sex Matters
A doctoral workshop by Jami Weinstein and Myra Hird
(2 op/credits)
3.-4.11.2011
University of Helsinki
Sexual difference theory has become one of the cornerstones of continental feminist philosophy over the past couple of decades. While its historical relevance remains clear, we want to investigate ways in which we might move the discussion to another level. Thinking about how we might retain the import of sexual difference by employing the concept as a theoretical and methodological tool instead of seeing it as a fundamental ontological fact might be one avenue to explore. In turn, this might help us realign our focus by moving away from the notion of sexual difference and its inextricable humanistic bent and toward notions of sex and reproduction reinterpreted from a microontological perspective. This seminar will attend to those methodological and ontological reinterpretations toward the aim of “thinking differently.”
Program
Thursday 3.11.
16.15-18.15 (Unioninkatu 40, room 8)
Jami Weinstein: “Theory Sex”
Myra Hird: “Sex Matters on a Sociable Planet”
Friday 4.11.
10.15-12.30 (Unioninkatu 40, room 5)
Workshop session for selected PhD students
Suggested Readings
E. Ben Jacob, et al. “Bacterial Linguistic Communication and Social Intelligence” in Trends in Microbiology (2004), 12(8): 366-372.
Claire Colebrook, “Is Sexual Difference a Problem?” in Deleuze and Feminist Theory, ed. Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000).
_____, “Introduction Part I,” in Deleuze and Gender, ed. Claire Colebrook and Jami Weinstein (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), 1–19.
Jacques Derrida, “‘Eating Well’ or the Calculation of the Subject” in E. Cadava, P. Connor and J.L. Nancy (eds.) Who Comes after the Subject? (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 15-34.
Elizabeth Grosz, “Sexual Difference and the Problem of Essentialism,” in Space, Time, and Perversion, ed. Elizabeth Grosz (New York: Routledge, 1995), 45-57.
_____, Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2005), Part IV.
_____, Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 25-62.
Myra J. Hird, “Feminist Matters: New Materialist Considerations of Sexual Difference,” in Feminist Theory (2004), 5(2): 223-232.
_____, Sex, Gender and Science (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
_____, “Re(pro)ducing Sexual Difference,” Parallax 8 (2002).
Luciana Parisi. Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Bio-technology, and the Mutations of Desire (New York: Continuum, 2004), 1-87.
_____, “For a Schizogenesis of Sexual Difference,” in Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture (2004), 3(1): 67-93
M. Puig de la Bellacasa “Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things,” in Social Studies of Science (2011), 41(1): 85-106.
Jami Weinstein, “Introduction Part II” in Deleuze and Gender, ed. Claire Colebrook and Jami Weinstein (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), 20–33.
_____, “A Requiem to Sexual Difference: A Response to Luciana Parisi’s ‘Event and Evolution.’” The Southern Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 48, Spindel Supplement, 2010.
W. Whitman, D. Coleman, and W. Wiebe, ‘Prokayotes: The Unseen Majority,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1998), 95: 6578-6583.
Applications specifying interest as well as the stage of doctoral studies and dissertation work should be sent by e-mail to
spt-tohtoriohjelma [at] helsinki.fi. The workshop is organized by the The Finnish Research School in Women’s and Gender Studies but also other PhD students working on the thematic field of gender studies within different disciplines may apply. The number of students will be limited to 10.
Extended deadline for applications: 24.10.2011.
Jami Weinstein is an University Research Associate and Director of The Zoontology Research Team at Linköping University’s Tema Genus. She is the co-editor of Deleuze and Gender (2008, Edinburgh) and a number of articles such as: “A Requiem to Sexual Difference: A Response to Luciana Parisi’s ‘Event and Evolution’,” “Transgenres and the Plane of Language, Species, and Evolution,” “Transgenres and the Plane of Gender Imperceptibility,” “Reality TV: Social Life as Laboratory Experiment,” and “Traces of the Beast: Becoming-Nietzsche, Becoming-Animal, and the Figure of the Trans-Human.” She is currently working on a large-scale international project entitled “Conflict Zones: Genocide, Extinction, and the Inhuman” and at work on her monograph On Returning to the Level of the Skin and Beyond: A Techno-Zoontology and a co-edited volume (with Claire Colebrook) called Inhuman Rites and Posthumous Life. For additional information, see: http://www.liu.se/forskning/foass/jami-weinstein?l=en
Myra J. Hird is Professor, Queen’s National Scholar and Graduate Studies Coordinator in Sociology, Environmental Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Queen’s University. She is the author of Sociology of Science (2011, Oxford University Press), The Origins of Sociable Life: Evolution After Science Studies (2009, Palgrave), Sex, Gender and Science (2004, Palgrave), Engendering Violence (2002, Ashgate), co-editor of Queering the NonHuman (2008, Ashgate), Questioning Sociology Second Edition (2011, Oxford University Press) and Sociology for the Asking (2002, Oxford University Press), as well as some fifty articles and book chapters on topics related to science studies. Hird is currently working on a project with Kerry Rowe (Civil Engineering) and Nigel Clark (Geography) on garbage and waste management. For further information see http://www.myrahird.com/Myra_Hird/Home.html
Julkaistu 22.09.11