The last installment of our Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS) by Staffan Müller-Wille (Cambridge) on Sex and Gender in the History of the Life Sciences from 12. December 2024 is now available on YouTube.
The DLS is organized by the Integrated Research Training Group (iRTG) of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1665 “Sexdiversity”.
Abstract:
Science, technology and medicine are often portrayed as driving forces in the formulation and reinforcement of sex binaries and gender stereotypes based on these. At the same time, recent decades have seen a burgeoning literature on how life scientists, in the past and in the present, have been revealing queer patterns in the formation and variation of sex across all life forms. In this talk, I am going to review the history of understandings of sex and gender from antiquity to the mid-twentieth century. My argument will be that sex, and consequently gender, were always held as fluid categories allowing for endless variations and permutations. It is precisely because of that, however, that they always have been subject to normalizing discourses. Sex variation had to be reigned in, paradoxically, precisely because it seemed normal but not in line with prevailing or aspired norms.
Staffan Müller-Wille is Professor in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences at the University of Cambridge and holds an Honorary Chair at the University of Lübeck. His research covers the history of the life sciences from the early modern period to the early twentieth century, with a focus on the history of natural history, anthropology, and genetics. Among his publications is a book co-authored with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger on The Cultural History of Heredity(2012) and further co-edited collections on Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century (2013), Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Experimental Science, 1850–1930 (2016), The Gene in the Postgenomic Era, co-authored with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (2017), In the Shadow of the Tree: The Diagrammatics of Relatedness in Genealogy, Anthropology, and Genetics as Epistemic, Cultural, and Political Practice, co–authored with Marianne Sommer, Caroline Arni and Simon Teuscher (2024).
Andrew Sinclair, a member of the scientific advisory board of CRC 1665, recently published a critical analysis of the newly proposed mandatory genetic tests for women athletes by World Athletics. Sinclair is notably the scientist who discovered the relevant gene involved in sex development back in 1990, giving him unique expertise on the topic.
Am 20. Januar 2025, dem ersten Tag seiner zweiten Amtszeit, unterzeichnete US-Präsident Donald Trump die Executive Order 14168 mit dem Titel Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Link). Es handelt sich um ein wirkmächtiges Dokument, das das Leben vieler Menschen prägt – mit dem Anspruch, Körpergeschlecht eindeutig zu definieren. Dabei vermischen sich ideologische Vorstellungen, politische Maßnahmen und wissenschaftliche Argumentationen.
In unserem Beitrag nehmen wir die darin gezeichneten Vorstellungen von Körpergeschlecht kritisch in den Blick.
Diese „neue Physiologie“ der Regulation durch leistungsstarke Agentien war untrennbar mit den Potentialen der pharmaindustriellen Produktion verbunden. Hormone waren zugleich Naturstoffe und Arzneimittel. Vor allem nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg entstanden enge Beziehungen zwischen biochemischer Forschung und industrieller Herstellung. Das Ziel der pharmazeutischen Großunternehmen war die Produktion reiner, standardisierter Substanzen und deren molekulare Umgestaltung zur Gewinnung neuer Produkte. Die Herstellung von Wirksamkeit war dabei immer auch die Herstellung von Marktfähigkeit. Das endokrinologische Körperwissen war unmittelbar an eine pharmaindustrielle Ökonomie gebunden.
The Distinguished Lecture with Anelis Kaiser Trujillo is now online in full length. Although AI has increasingly dominated scientific research, neuroscience continues to captivate both academic and public interest. A central question remains: how does biological ‘sex’ influence behavior, cognition, and communication?
