BIOCULTURES GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE:>science >technology >culture >humanity

University of Illinois at Chicago, November 16-17, 2007

Keynote speakers:

Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California Lennard J. Davis, University of Illinois at Chicago

In the 1950s, C.P. Snow saw a fundamental split between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities. But in recent years this split has faded, with theorists like Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway as well as writers like Samuel Delaney and Octavia Butler examining what "the human" is in a world where recent biological and technological developments have profoundly shaken our assumptions about identity and power. At the same time, interdisciplinary work in fields like bioethics, gender studies, disability studies and critical race theory has begun to bridge this divide, offering up new ways of theorizing the body and its relationship to medical, cultural, and political knowledge. Putting projects like these in dialogue with one other, this conference seeks to create an interdisciplinary discourse that participates in the emergence of biocultures - the intellectual space where the humanities and the sciences converge. We invite presentations on biocultural issues from scholars and professionals from all disciplines. Papers may address, but are in no way limited to, the following:

> posthumanism > cosmetic surgery/body modification > cognitive mapping > prosthesis > eugenics/phrenology/scientific racism > psychiatric illnesses (post-traumatic stress, OCD, etc.) > the science of sexual deviance (sexology, the �gay gene,� etc.) > medical technologies > anthropology vs. genetics > birth control and reproductive rights > the human/animal boundary > psychiatry & brain science > transgenderism, transexuality intersexuality > literary representations of science and medicine > biopower/biopolitics > postmodern warfare > nanotechnology > cybercultures > eco-feminism > disability studies > bioethics

For more information and updates, visit our conference website at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/biocultures/

This conference is part of Project Biocultures, an ongoing effort dedicated to exploring new ways of thinking about the intersections between the human and the technological. More information about Project Biocultures can be found at: http://www.biocultures.org/index2.php

Please send abstracts of 250-350 words to projectbiocultures [AT] gmail.com by July 1, 2007