international Dissensus Conference on Brain and Gender

[nicole6]

Hallo KollegInnen !
ich habe vor, mich mit einem Arbeitspapier zu einem Vortrag
bei der folgenden Konferenz in Lausanne zu bewerben.
Vielleicht hat jemand von euch Interesse mit einer eigenen
Arbeit mitzumachen, oder sich mit mir zusammen zu bewerben?!

hier der Aufruf:

NeuroGenderings III - The 1st international Dissensus Conference on Brain and Gender
8-10 May 2014, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Please find enclosed the CALL FOR PAPERS or check the conference website: www.unil.ch/neurogenderings3

Call for papers

The idea and interest of organizing dissensus (rather than
consensus) conferences were initially suggested [17] with two
main objectives in mind. The first was to advance “dissensus
studies” exacerbating through critical analysis the conflicting
dimensions of social life, especially in relation to (neuro-
)science, medicine, gender and society, thereby extending the
STS tradition of controversy studies [e.g., 9]. From a dissensus
perspective, controversies and conflicts are considered not as
obstacles to be overcome before we can have a “proper
conversation,” and build collaborations or bridges between
science, medicine and society. Rather, they are conceived of as
ordinary, even desirable, phenomena in the practices of “good
science,” of alliance formation, and of democracy. The second
objective was then to explore how a dissensus framework could
be operationalized to do more robust empirical research,
improve healthcare practices, and “bring the sciences into
democracy” [see 19].

The third edition of the NeuroGenderings conference series
inaugurates the first international “Dissensus Conference.” Like
earlier NG meetings, this three-day event will focus on the
dynamic and multidimensional relations between brain,
sex/gender, sexuality, and society. It aims to foster productive
exchanges by inviting all participants to make explicit the
different, and sometimes diverging, perspectives from which we
problematize and study these relations, their implications for the
concerned persons, and the broader sociopolitical stakes
involved in our respective studies. We would like to bring the
participants to reflect critically on the ways in which we do, or
should do, brain research, feminist and queer theory, as well as
brain sciences studies to make them relevant for political
minorities and society at large.


We are particularly interested in concrete discussions that clarify
how we produce knowledge, blind spots and ignorance; the
potentials and limits of our own inquiries compared to other
concerns, perspectives and research areas; articulate alternative
models for research on a multimorphic rather than a dimorphic
male or female brain; make explicit the kind of (im-)proper
objects, subjects, agency, (im-)possibilities for (self-
)transformation, and social order that we presume and produce
through our knowledge practices; contextualize these practices
in light of broader sociopolitical stakes, controversies, conflicts,
social movements, health and public policies to name just a
few. Such a collective endeavor is meant to open up the
possibility of formulating constructive critiques of the often
problematic “neurosexist” assumptions [7] that underwrite brain
science and politics, while at the same time inspiring new ways
of collaborating and of doing empirical neuroscience — towards
a feminist/queer neuroscience [3].

Contributions to these discussions are welcome in the following THEMATIC STRANDS:
Hands-on NeuroGenderings — queering the brain / queering neuroscience
Which alternative research designs and models for sex/gender
and sexuality need to be implemented by feminist and queer
neuroscientists so as to avoid determinism and other
methodological defaults that reinforce sex differences more than
anything else? What are the variables and statistical
approaches to be used in order to carry out more robust
empirical sex/gender research?; what kind of sex/gender
research practices would enable us to transform the
experimental process itself into a new form of critical
intervention? [e.g., 3-4, 8, 10-11, 13-15, 18, 20, 26-27].

Feminist/queer brain science studies and “dissensus studies”

How should we best do feminist/queer brain science studies?
With which theories, epistemologies, ontologies, ethics, tools,
concepts, questions, objects, and methods?; which analyses of
controversies and conflicts over brain, sex/gender and sexuality
research are required for this purpose?; further elaborations and
critiques of the dissensus framework [e.g., 1-5, 8, 12, 14, 16-
18, 20, 22-27].

Interdisciplinarity and other modes of collaboration — for what?

Concrete discussions identifying convergences and divergences
between neuroscience, feminist and queer theory, the social
studies of neuroscience, and within each of these domains;
analyses of the conditions of (im-)possibilities of articulating
different perspectives, methods, disciplines, concerns, etc. [e.g.,
1-4, 8, 12, 16-18, 20, 23, 25-26].

Neuroscience in relation to clinical research and healthcare practices
Analyses of the medical/clinical issues that frame brain research
on sex, gender, and sexuality; uses of such research in clinical
studies and healthcare practices; psychiatric/clinical
neuroscience; psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy; drug
research and clinical trials; epidemiology; psychiatric
classifications (DSM, ICD, other); standards of care; implications
for the concerned persons [e.g., 4, 10, 12, 16-17].

Neuroscience, ethics and politics
Sociological, historical, philosophical, ethical, cultural, etc.
analyses of the broader sociopolitical stakes and related issues
such as age, class, race involved in brain research on sex,
gender, sexuality; implications for the concerned persons and
society at large in terms of naturalization, discrimination,
individual and group definition/formation, power relations,
agency, etc. [e.g., 2-3, 7, 13, 16-18, 21-27].

Expert, lay expert, and pop uses of brain research

Social life of brain research outside the laboratory;
neurocultures, neurolaw, neuroeconomics, neuroenhancement,
etc.; public policies (education, health care, employment,
equality, diversity, physical/personal integrity, etc.); brain-
related activism; media; public understanding of neuroscience;
pop neuroscience literature, etc. [e.g., 5-7, 21, 25, 27].

Other themes relevant to brain science studies and gender studies
Contributions to this conference can be submitted for oral

presentation (20 min. paper) or for a poster presentation.
Abstracts for papers/posters should not exceed 3000 characters
(including spaces).
Please send your abstracts, along with a very short bionote, to
dissensus_neurogenderings@unil.ch and indicate the strand in
which you aim to present your paper/poster.

Deadline for submission: 1st October 2013. The papers will be
selected within a short time frame; confirmation by mid-
October.

Cited references
[1] Bluhm, R., A. Jacobsen & H. Maibom, Eds. 2012. Neurofeminism: Issues at the Intersection of Feminist Theory
and Cognitive Science
(New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science).
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan
[2] Dussauge, I. & A. Kaiser, Guest Eds, 2012a. Special issue
entitled “Neuroscience and Sex/Gender.” Neuroethics 5(3).

[3] Dussauge, I. & A. Kaiser. 2012b. Re-Queering the Brain. In
[1]: 121-144.
[4] Einstein, G. 2012. Situated Neuroscience: Exploring Biologies of Diversity. In [1]: 145-174.
[5] Fausto-Sterling, A. 2012. Sex/gender. Biology in a social world. NY & London: Routledge.
[6] Fine, C. 2008 [2006]. A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives. New York: W. W. Norton.
[7] Fine, C. 2010. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. New York: W. W. Norton.
[8] Fitsch, H. 2012. (A)e(s)th(et)ics of Brain Imaging. Visibilities and Sayabilities in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Neuroethics 5(3): 275-283.
[9] Jasanoff, S., G. E. Markle, J. C. Peterson & T. Pinch, Eds. 2008. Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
[10] Joel, D. 2011. Male or female? Brains are intersex. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 5 (article 57).
[11] Joel, D. 2012. Genetic-gonadal-genitals sex (3G-sex) and the misconception of brain and gender, or, why 3G-males and 3G-females have intersex brain and intersex gender. Biology of Sex Differences 3(27) : 6 pages.
[12] Jordan-Young, R. 2010. Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[13] Jordan-Young, R., & R. Rumiati. 2012. Hardwired for Sexism? Approaches to Sex/Gender in Neuroscience. Neuroethics 5(3): 305-315.
[14] Kaiser, A. 2012. Re-conceptualizing Sex and Gender in the Human Brain. Journal of Psychology 220(2): 130-136.
[15] Kaiser, A., Haller, S., Schmitz, S. & Nitsch, C. 2009. On Sex/Gender Related Similarities and Differences in fMRI Language Research. Brain Research Reviews 61: 49-59.
[16] Kraus, C. 2012a. Critical studies of the sexed brain: a critique of what and for whom? Neuroethics 5(3): 247-259.
[17] Kraus, C. 2012b. Linking Neuroscience, Medicine, Gender and Society through Controversy and Conflict Analysis: A “Dissensus Framework” for Feminist/Queer Brain Science Studies. In [1]: 193-215.
[18] Kuria, E. N., & V. Hess. 2011. Rethinking gender politics in laboratories and neuroscience research : the case of spatial abilities in math performance. Medicine studies 3(2) : 117-123.
[19] Latour, B. 2004. Politics of nature. How to bring the sciences into democracy. English transl. C. Porter. Harvard: Harvard Univ. Press.
[20] Nikoleyczik, K. 2012. Towards Diffractive Transdisciplinarity: Integrating Gender Knowledge into the Practice of Neuroscientific Research. Neuroethics, 5(3): 231-245
[21] Rippon, G. 2010. Sexing the brain: How Neurononsense joined Psychobabble to ‘Keep Women in Their Place’. Lecture presented at British Science Festival, Sept. 2010. Press release (pdf attached). Accessed 29 July 2013.
[22] Roy, D. 2012a. Neuroethics, Gender and the Response to Difference. Neuroethics, 5(3): 217-230.
[23] Roy, D. 2012b. Cosmopolitics and the Brain: The Co-Becoming of Practices in Feminism and Neuroscience. In [1]: 175-192.
[24] Schmitz, S. 2010. Sex, Gender, and the Brain: Biological Determinism Versus Socio-Cultural Constructivism. In I. Klinge & C. Wiesmann (eds.), Sex and Gender in Biomedicine. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen, pp. 57–76.
[25] Schmitz, S. & G. Höppner. Forthcoming 2014. NeuroCultures – NeuroGenderings. Vienna: Zaglossus e. U. /Coll. Challenge GENDER – Contemporary challenges of within Gender Theory (ed. Referat Genderforschung, University of Vienna).
[26] Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari van Anders, http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/ ... inism.html. Accessed 29 July 2013.
[27] Vidal, C. 2012. The sexed brain: between science and ideology. Neuroethics 5(3):295-303.
Concept: Cynthia Kraus (University of Lausanne) and Anelis Kaiser (University of Bern)
Organization: Cynthia Kraus (UNIL), Anelis Kaiser (UNIBE), Christel Gumy (UNIL), Alba Brizzi (UNIL)
Scientific Committee: Isabelle Dussauge (University of Uppsala, Sweden), Cordelia Fine (University of Melbourne, Australia), Hannah Fitsch (TU Berlin, Germany), Rebecca Jordan-Young (Barnard College, U.S.A.), Anelis Kaiser (UNIBE), Cynthia Kraus (UNIL), Emily Ngubia Kuria (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany), Katrin Nikoleyczik (Bonn, Germany), Deboleena Roy (Emory University, U.S.A.), Raffaella Rumiati (SISSA Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Italy), Sigrid Schmitz (University of Vienna, Austria), Catherine Vidal (Pasteur Institute Paris, France)
Call for papers PDF