Technologies of Sex (GEND20010)

This subject explores how sex, gender and sexuality are entangled with science and technology. How are our understandings of sex and sexuality informed by a history of scientific investigation? How do gender and location shape the production of scientific knowledge? How is science mobilised in claims that binary sex and gender have a natural and biological basis? And how can we use science and technology in the pursuit of feminist and queer goals? This subject examines these questions from the perspective of feminist, queer and decolonial theories of science and technology. Introducing students to the rich interdisciplinary field of feminist and queer technoscience, the subject offers a critical inquiry into the scientific construction of sexuality, and the history of scholarly efforts to challenge the nature/culture binary and rethink our beliefs in science as objective and value-free. Key topics include: feminist objectivity; the false binary of nature vs nurture; the construction of biological sex; postcolonial science studies; reproductive technologies; and feminist and queer interfaces with biomedicalisation.