Description
Telling Lives in Science: Reflections on Scholarly (auto)BiographyWhat does it mean to be a scholar? And how can we tell our own or other lives in science? There exists a rich tradition of (auto)biographical narratives written by and about scholars, but these narratives have often disregarded or barely mentioned the role of gender or any other category of in- and exclusion. Biographers did that, stressing their conviction that science is beyond the social, or that ‘the mind has no sex’, no colour, no class. For a long time, when writing their autobiographies, scholars and scientists reproduced these convictions. Indeed, one of the most common autobiographical ‘acts’ or ‘performances’ by women scholars, was to fashion themselves as ‘scientists’ as opposed to ‘women’, thereby giving off the impression that gender does not play a role in the male dominated world of academia.
Academic feminism of the 1960s and 1970s radically changed people’s perceptions. Following Alice Rossi’s question ‘Why so few?’ women’s and gender studies began to research the role of women and gender in science and academia. In the 1980s, Kimberlée Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality expanded our intellectual toolkit and brought awareness to the many categories of difference that play a role in the white, masculine, elitist domain of science and academia, including class, ethnicity and sexuality. Since then, scholars have explored the ‘struggles and strategies’ (to cite Margaret Rossiter’s seminal study of American women scientists), that non-standard scholars faced, as well as the repertoires that they utilized in order to lay claim to authority and credibility.
Professor Buikema gave a keynote lecture.
| Period | 15 Sept 2022 → 16 Sept 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Groningen, NetherlandsShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |