‘Technologies of Gender’ Symposium (5 June 2019)

Are you interested in gender and/or technology? I am co-organising an interdisciplinary symposium next week at Winchester School of Art called ‘Technologies of Gender’. It aims to explore the ways in which technology shapes (and is shaped by) our constructions of gender identity, and also to offer a space in which scholars from different fields and faculties can share their perspectives on this topic. Speakers will include artists and industry professionals, as well as academics from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

The event is open to all, and lunch will be provided, so please do come along! Registration is free, but you are strongly advised to book ahead, so we can ensure there is enough food for everyone. Click here to access the registration portal.

You will find a brief description of the event and programme below. More information is available at the symposium website.

Technology has been held responsible for producing and reproducing gender norms and practices (Cockburn 1983, 1985; Wajcman 1991), but it has also been hailed as the saviour of minorities, especially women, by providing the tools for their liberation from oppression (Haraway 1997; Plant 1998). The reality is somewhere in the middle, ‘between technophobia and technophilia’ (Wajcman 2007, p. 287). We are interested in theorising this middle ground, examining the mutually-defining relationship between gender and technology by exploring the gendered dimensions of technology’s access and use, and the framing of debates around gender identities and technology. Taking up Ursula K. Le Guin’s broad definition of technology as ‘how a society copes with physical reality’ (2004), we will consider the various ways in which technology works as a mediator between the body and embodied experiences of identity. From the household appliance revolution to Haraway’s feminist cyborg to sexual reassignment surgery, how is gender shaped, performed, and transformed by various technologies and technological metaphors?

As a first step in this process, on 5th June 2019 the Intersectionalities: politics – identities – culturesresearch group and the MA in Global Media Management will co-host a one-day symposium on ‘Technologies of Gender’. Through a series of expert lectures, workshops and discussions, this event will explore the ways in which technology shapes (and is shaped by) our constructions of gender identity. We hope that this event will lead to future collaborations between participants, not least by fostering an interdisciplinary understanding of the gendered dimensions of technology, and the ways in which gender plays a core role in shaping how technology is manufactured, produced, used and consumed.

‘Technologies of Gender’ Programme
10.30-11.30 Welcome and GMM student-led presentations
11.30-12.30 Two speakers

+ Q&A

 

Namvula Rennie

Quiet Revolutions’ (30 mins)

 

Dr. Tom Tlalim (20 mins)

‘Tonotopia: Listening Through a Digital Ear’

 

10 mins Q&A

12.30- 1.30 Lunch University catering
1.30 – 3.00 Three speakers

+ Q&A

Dr Christine ‘Xine’ Yao (30 mins)

‘All Look The Same: Techno-Orientalist Queer Reproduction at the Turn of the Century’

 

Dr August Jordan Davis (20 mins)

‘Woman as Media: Channelling and Challenging in Feminist Visual Cultures’

 

20 mins Q&A

3.00-3.30 Coffee break University catering
3.30-5.00 Three speakers

+ Q&A

Professor Marika Taylor (30 mins)

‘Gendered issues in theoretical science’

 

Isabel Lopez (20 mins)

‘Gender and the Internet of Things’

 

Prof. Elselijn Kingma (20 mins)

‘Breeders or Incubators? The Handmaid and Metaphysics of Pregnancy’

20 mins Q&A

5.00-late Drinks and informal dinner The Willow Tree

Read more at the event website.

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