Queering Science, Queering Technology
Seminar Organizer(s):
- Christine Yao (Cornell University), Cheryl Spinner (Duke University)
Tracking technologies are contingent upon orienting oneself through space. What other intersectional markers can locate an individual’s orientation? Current trends in queer phenomenology articulate how the language of orientation is itself bound up with notions of desire (ie: sexual orientation, object choice). Sara Ahmed suggests that a queer phenomenology “might start by redirecting our attention toward different objects, those that are ‘less proximate’ or even those that deviate or are deviant.” What would queer tracking technologies look like then with Ahmed’s speculations in mind?
Our panel seeks to more broadly explore the messy connections between science, technology, and queer theorizations.
Some overarching questions include: Should queerness be resistant to the authoritative voice of science that can often prescribe objectivity, pathology, and etiology? What can we learn if we examine the queer and disavowed so-called pseudosciences and other failures, dead-ends, and discards of scientific development? Drawing upon Heather Love, what might it be like to feel backward through science?
Possible topics might include but are not limited to:
- queer phenomenology,
- queer technologies,
- non-normativity,
- pseudosciences,
- object orientation,
- sexology
SEMINAR KEYWORDS: queer theory; science; pseudoscience; technology; sexual orientation; LGBT studies; phenomenology; sexology