Queer, trans and feminist theories have destabilised gendered binaries at the core of normative biomedical models, challenging Western foundational dualisms between mind and body. This course focuses on one single object of study, testosterone, as an affectively charged biopolitical agent, operating across sociocultural regimes saturated with human and nonhuman agency and distributed across vast economic networks. We will read slowly and carefully across a range of literatures (including historical, autobiographical, scientific and philosophical genres) to situate testosterone within gendered and sexed bio-economies in Anglo-American historical contexts and beyond. As an experiment in slow scholarship and slow pedagogy, the course explores testosterone ontologies and epistemologies in relation to prosthetic embodiment, sexuality, gender identity, transitioning, menopause, hormone replacement therapies, and lived experiences of pleasure, loss, care and kinship.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Dr. Sofia Varino
Semester: WiSe 2021/22