Community Event:
The 2013-2014 Harvard University Gender and Sexuality Seminar Series: The Maternal Imprint
additional seminar series information is available here
co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, the Department of the History of Science, and the Committee of Degrees on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
The Maternal Mystique: Knowing and Unknowing the Maternal-Fetal Interface
Sarah S. Richardson
Assistant Professor of the History of Science and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
Professor Richardson will present a précis of her book-in-progress on the history of the science of maternal effects. A historian and philosopher of science, her research focuses gender in the biosciences and on the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. Richardson's current book project, with the working title The Maternal Mystique, theorizes and situates maternal effects research within the twentieth-century life sciences. The term “maternal effects” refers to the influences of a mother’s behavior, exposures, and physiology on her offspring’s future health and development. Once marginalized, maternal effects research blossomed in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Today, maternal effects research is an expanding field in medicine, public health, psychology, evolutionary biology, and genomics. The book will examine the intersection between the rise of maternal effects research in the life sciences and changing conceptions of motherhood, health citizenship, and genetic determinism in the twentieth century. Richardson is the author of Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome and the co-editor of Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age.
There is no advance reading for this event. A light lunch will be served.
Co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, the Department of the History of Science, and the Committee of Degrees on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
LOCATION:Science Center, room 469 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20131203T170000Z DTEND:20131203T170000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR