Next STS Inside Out on November 12!
Date: Friday, November 12, 2021 - 11:00 to 13:00
If you conduct research in the social studies of science and are interested in science and technology studies, please attend the second meeting of STS Inside Out! Sponsored by the College of SBS and the School of Anthropology, STSInside Out is a monthly meeting of faculty and graduate students at the UA to discuss works-in-progress and build community around shared research and teaching interests. Meetings will occur on the second Friday of the month through April 2022.
On November 12, 11:00am-12:50pm, Dr. Janelle Lamoreaux will discuss a work-in-progress titled “Beyond the Egg and the Sperm: how scientists have revised a romance through reproductomics,”
Keeping the continuing pandemic in mind, we will meet outdoors at ENR 2 Rooftop, located at 1064 East Lowell Street, Tucson. Masks are required. RSVP and send any accommodation requests by November 6 to sci-tech-studies@arizona.edu.
Work-in-progress Discussion by Dr. Janelle Lamoreaux, “Beyond the Egg and the Sperm: how scientists have revised a romance through reproductomics”
Abstract: Scientific characterizations of the egg and the sperm, which are shaped by the social and cultural contexts in which they are produced (Martin 1991), have been transformed by a recent embrace of -omics. As research on how the genome, proteome, transcriptome, metabolome, and other -omes shape reproduction increases, how have understandings of the egg and the sperm as well as the embryo been transformed? Through a discussion of “reproductomics”—an area of research defined as the application of -omics to the study of reproduction—I describe a reimagining of gametes as fundamentally connected to and shaped through their contexts. Such relational understandings, however, continue to operate through a reproductive teleology that prioritizes individual “pregnancy potential”, and often conscripts reflection on broader -omics landscapes into gendered and molecular visions of “personalized assisted reproduction”. In what ways has thinking with relations changed depictions of the egg and the sperm, and in what ways is the potential of a more relational and contextual biology limited by broader narratives of reproduction that have largely stayed the same?
Anthro News Digest date: 10/29/2021; updated 11/05/2021
