ASU lecture to examine bioethics, animal studies, race and postcolonialism

Recent advances in biotechnologies, such as the completion of the human genome project and genetic editing, have not only raised ethical questions about their use and effects on humans, but also underscored criticisms of animal cruelty that have been central to animal studies.

Rachel Lee will lecture on this topic at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 20, 2016, in West Hall room 135, as part of the "Interactions and Interchanges" lecture series (RSVP here).

Lee will consider intersections between the study of biotechnologies, animals, and the regulation of human life and death in the ream of politics. She will discuss how the focus in animal studies and bioethics on the interconnectedness of humans with other life forms parallels the study of the political regulation of human populations marked by intersecting social identities and forms of subjugation.

Rachel Lee is Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Director, Center for the Study of Women, and founder of the Life (Un)Ltd project. She is the author of "The Exquisite Corpse of Asian America: Biopolitics, Biosociality and Posthuman Ecologies" (2014). Her scholarship draws on critical methods from race and ethnic studies in conjunction with theories of gender and sexuality to examine the specific interfaces and choreographies of stand-up comedy, dance, new media/digital technology, and literature, most recently as they reflect on the life sciences. She is a founding editor of the peer-reviewed online journal, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience.

The event is free and open to the public but RSVPs are recommended. For more information please see the event webpage.

This event is sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict and the Department of English. The Interactions and Interchanges speaker series was developed in conjunction with a grant from the U.S. State Department for a project on “Globalizing Research and Teaching of American Literature,” a university partnership between Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, Pakistan and ASU.
 
The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict is an interdisciplinary research unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that examines the role of religion as a driving force in human affairs.