Persona and the Performance of Identity : Parallel Developments in the Biographical Historiography of Science and Gender, and the Related Uses of Self Narrative

In this article Bosch explores the parallel development in scientific and gender biography to shed light on the relation between the individual and the collective, the self and society. In the history of science the relational/collective scientific self and the concept of the scientific persona (or mask) were developed in order to gain insight in the co-construction of the individual scientist and the collective scientific enterprise. In gender studies theatrical metaphors came into use to understand collective and relational aspects of (gender) identity formation. Doing or performing science as shown in the cases of Boyle and Harris, and doing or performing gender as shown in the cases of Lady Dilke and Marguerite Durand simultaneously entered the stage of biographical representations of scientists and subjects of feminist inquiries. They inform what can be called the ‘new biography’. This study of identity formation investigates self representations and self narrative in a variety of texts from autobiographies to travelogues and house hold accounts to scientific works. It interprets these texts not as unreliable subjective sources but as key texts crucial to comprehend the situated historical subject

Transforming Research Methodologies in EU Life Sciences and Biomedicine

This article describes how methodologies of EU-funded research within the life sciences and biomedicine have recently become more gender sensitive. This transformation is the result of the Gender Impact Assessments of the EU Fifth Framework Programme, commissioned in 2000-1. The authors assessed the research programme for life sciences, which includes a large health-related component. The new guidelines for research emphasize the need for clear terminology for concepts of sex and gender and for a distinction to be made between the two, for both life sciences and health research. Attention to possible sex differences, even in preclinical research, as well as to effects of gender, will lead to more adequate research data that serve the health of both men and women. The transformation to research becoming more gender-sensitive is further discussed in the context of feminist theory on the body. Being fully aware of the fact that what is happening in bodies is mediated by particular technologies, the authors make an appeal to invest in concepts that take the living and changing body into account

Le pouvoir du masque. Sources d'inspiration et implications politiques dans le théâtre contemporain en Afrique

Modern and Contemporary Studie