WOMEN’S STUDIES EXPERTS AT UH TO
LECTURE
AT NATIONAL FEMINIST THEORY & SCIENCE CONFERENCE
HOUSTON, Nov. 2, 2004 – A University of Houston professor
and a postdoctoral fellow will speak at a national conference that
focuses on feminist theory and science.
Anne Jaap Jacobson, professor of philosophy and electrical and
computer engineering, and J. Kasi Jackson, UH Women’s Studies
Program postdoctoral fellow, will lecture at the Feminist Epistemologies,
Methodologies, Metaphysics and Science Studies (FEMMSS) national
conference Nov. 5-7 at the University of Washington.
Jacobson, the associate director of the UH Center for Neuro-Engineering
and Cognitive Science, will deliver a keynote address “Reporting
from the Middle: A Feminist Perspective on Cognitive Neuroscience.”
“Cognitive neuroscience is changing the way we think about
the human mind in very fundamental ways, largely because we are
learning more about how the brain works,” she said. “Standard
methodologies involve studying the individual brain in isolation,
but feminist theorists have long argued against a traditional picture
of the mental as isolated from the social. My paper explores bringing
together knowledge of the inner brain with a social perspective
on the human mind.”
These findings will be published in the article “Is the
Brain a Memory Box?” that will be published in the journal
“Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.”
Jackson will talk on “Savvy Consumers and Autonomic Entities:
Two Scientific Accounts for Female Ornamental Traits in Animal Behavior
Research.” Her lecture will examine how gender stereotypes
affect animal behavioral ecology research.
“In the past male animals were portrayed as sexually aggressive
and willing to mate with anything, while female animals were believed
to be passive, yet choosy about their sexual partners,” she
said. “More recent studies have found that female animals
are more sexually aggressive, and male animals are more selective
than previously portrayed. While some view this as a corrective
to the earlier biased research, I argue that it simply reverses
the stereotypes.”
The previous FEMMSS conference was held in the mid-1990s. Given
how much feminist analyses of scientific subjects have expanded
since then, organizers hope to cover significant ground.
For more information about the FEMMSS conference and for a conference
schedule, visit http://depts.washington.edu/femmss/.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students
For more information about UH visit the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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