Due to the long and violent legacies of biological determinism, humanities have avoided engaging with the findings of the natural sciences to explain the mind and society. Likewise, the natural sciences have shunned the knowledge of the social sciences, framing it as too specific and non-reproducible. The goal of this reading group is to think together about how to bridge the gap between the two thus far disparate domains of knowledge and find a middle ground between universalization and relativism. 

A tentative skeleton for the readings will be provided, but this group is designed as a collaborative space where people can contribute and suggest the readings that could associatively respond to the ongoing conversations (likely to develop in unexpected directions). We will begin with a historical situatedness of psychology and neuroscience (e.g. authors such as Williams Davies and Nikolas Rose) and think about how the increasing quantification and measurement of emotion has been used as a biopolitical tool that serves the status quo. We will then move to the unfairly neglected work on "sociogenesis" by Sylvia Wynter, who is one of the key figures to think about how hormones participate in re/producing our sense of identities. After that, we'll read some philosophical accounts on epigenesis and plasticity, such as Victoria Pitts-Taylor and Catherine Malabou, who stress the non-authoritative and emancipatory capacities of sciences that might otherwise be understood as leading to positivistic or universalized conceptions of "the body."

We will meet every second week (5 times)--the week of April 8, April 22, May 6, May 20, and June 3. A link to the best time to meet is provided here and in the question section. Try to fill it out by April 3rd (Wed) so that we have about a week to read the first articles. https://www.when2meet.com/?24274847-GHgeF