Conference Announcement and VFP

[Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe]

Taboos, and the Impact of Science on Society-Sex in an Age of Technological Reproduction

 

An international conference and public debate, including performances of Carl Djerassi's short pedagogical classroom play, ICSI: A Wordplay for Two Voices and his most recent theatre play, Taboos. 

 

Dates: Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 November, 2010

Venue: University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

 

In this 50th anniversary year of the public launching of the contraceptive pill, The University of Lincoln is proud to announce an event which embraces an international conference and public debate, Taboos, and The Impact of Science on Society - Sex in An Age of Technological Reproduction, 

 

World famous speakers include Professor Carl Djerassi (Emeritus Professor, University of Stanford. He is the man who first synthesised the oral contraceptive pill in 1951. He was ranked by The London Sunday Times Magazine among the top 30 most prominent personalities of the millennium) and Professor Andre C. Van Steirteghem (Emeritus Professor, Free University of Brussels), one of the three-man team who successfully fertilised a human egg with a single sperm by direct injection under the microscope in 1992, known as ICSI. 

 

Other eminent and renowned speakers include Dr Alan Thornhill (Scientific Director, London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology & Genetics Centre), Professor Tom Shakespeare (PEALS - Policy, Ethics & Life Sciences Institute, University of Newcastle), Kenan Malik (Broadcaster, Writer, R4 Moral Maze panellist) and Vivienne Parry (Scientist, Writer, Broadcaster: 'Inside the Ethics Committee', 'Question Time', Science Correspondent/Editor for The Times and The Guardian). 

 

 

Call for Papers 

 

In whatever land we are born or live, we are brought up within a social structure and convention, which some might describe as 'taboos'. The scientific view of the world often confronts social formulae, including such taboos; science changes the way we think about our world and ourselves. In areas of human interaction and consciousness science may question social culture and religious opinion, and in no other area of human activity is science more challenging than in the domain of our own procreation - once believed to be solely the province of the divine. Our modern understanding of the nature of procreation shattered history's metaphysical and philosophical views through the ages, from the Aristotelian view of bodily fluids to the 'ovists' and the 'spermists'. How we procreate is who we are, challenge that sphere of human activity and we begin to question, if not redefine who we are.

 

In the 41st year since the groundbreaking development of IVF, a discovery which opened up a whole new field of interdisciplinary study which has embraced science, medicine, ethics, the law and social anthropology, The University of Lincoln is working with one of the world's most renowned  scientists, Professor Carl Djerassi, to present a two-day conference and public debate in Lincoln. 

 

In Walter Benjamin's famous 1936 essay Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction he argues that 'the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition'. Our conference title, Sex in an Age of Technological Reproduction is an intentional allusion to Benjamin - by replacing 'work of art' by 'sex' and substituting 'offspring' for 'reproduced object' it becomes clear that Benjamin's ideas could equally apply to ART. Carl Djerassi considers the impending separation of sex (in bed) and fertilisation (under the microscope) to be one of the fundamental issues facing humanity during the coming century. 

 

It was Djerassi's so-called 'invention' of the Contraceptive Pill in 1951 that gave the world sex without children and brought sexual freedom to millions of women, and which many people argue triggered the social revolution of the 1960s. His extraordinary scientific achievements in the area of human reproduction (or more precisely, control over reproduction) therefore puts him in a unique position to reflect on the whole issue of assisted reproduction, a theme he has investigated particularly in his science-in-theatre plays. 

 

Traditional conceptions of the family are challenged in a multitude of ways by biomedical innovation, which creates greater scope for the biological and cultural aspects of human existence to diverge, as our reproduction ceases to be dictated by the caprices of nature, and becomes a domain that we can understand and manipulate to our own ends. 

 

These remarkable scientific and medical developments have radically disrupted the historical connections between sex and reproduction. Every day another barrier or taboo is broken asunder - 'lifestyle' fertility treatment, stem cell research, 'designer babies', young women freezing their eggs (putting 'motherhood on ice'), surrogate pregnancies, genetic engineering and reprogenetics. Churches, courts and society at large are having to face up to increasingly wide definitions of parenthood ranging from relatively straightforward in-vitro fertility treatments to heterosexual surrogacies to demand from the gay community to be allowed to be loving parents.  

 

We therefore welcome papers that explore the social, political, cultural or ethical implications behind the rapid developments in ART since the discovery of IVF and the development of ICSI. Examples of such arguments might include:

 

·        Do ethicists meddle in and impede bio-medical developments too much? 

 

·        Are such developments (not least Carl Djerassi's Contraceptive Pill) simply the latest instalments in a great narrative of nature subordinated to human ingenuity, that characterises the whole of science and medicine to date?

 

·        The potential uses of ICSI for fertilisation using the sperm of the deceased (in the UK, Diane Blood won a legal battle to use her deceased husband's sperm in this way and has now had two of 'his' children as a result)

 

·        Is there an intrinsic value in 'natural' processes of reproduction, incubation and childrearing? To some people, recent bio-medical developments risk taking us down a slippery slope to perdition

 

·        The potential uses of ICSI for sex selection (sex selection for medical reasons is permitted in the UK but sex selection for social reasons is currently prohibited)

 

·        Are concerns over the long-term health risks of IVF and ICSI babies justified?

 

·        Is the separation of sex and fertilisation shifting the balance of power into the domain of women?

 

·        Is any topic is as provocative and complex as the present questioning of the social meaning of parenthood and family? 

 

·        Is detaching a child from traditional procreation the most fundamental ethical issue raised by ART?

 

·        Have either Science or the Humanities adequately prepared us for the consequences of sex in an age of technological reproduction?

 

To provide a locus for debate, the conference will open with a performance of Carl Djerassi's short pedagogical classroom play, ICSI: A Wordplay for Two Voices, and there will be a rehearsed reading of his most recent full-length theatre play, Taboos. 

 

Djerassi says, "Science is inherently dramatic because it deals with the new and unexpected. But does it follow that scientists are dramatic personae, or that science can become the stuff of drama? Can 'science-in-theatre' fulfil an effective pedagogic function on stage, or are pedagogy and drama antithetical? Must the urge to educate be an automatic kiss of death when writing for the theatre?"

 

We would therefore also be pleased to receive proposals for papers which examine the function or purpose of the rapidly emerging science-in-theatre genre, which examines historical or contemporary aspects of the genre, or that explores the interface between scientific ideas and drama and theatre. 

 

Through this conference we are hoping to stimulate debate around issues springing from the discovery of IVF, ICSI and ART. Following the performance of Taboos, there will be a public debate which will feature leading international experts and pioneers in the field, including Professors Carl Djerassi and Andre Van Steirteghem, Dr Alan Thornhill, Scientific Director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, and Professor Tom Shakespeare from the Policy, Ethics & Life Sciences Institute, University of Newcastle.

 

Submissions Guidelines:

 

Conference Dates: 20th and 21st November, 2010. 

 

Abstracts: 500 words, to include paper title, contributor's name, email address, professional or academic affiliation and a brief biographical note. 

 

Deadline for Abstracts: October 15th, 2010

 

Please email all abstracts to: Prof Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe (dmeyerdinkgrafe at lincoln.ac.uk <mailto:dmeyerdinkgrafe at lincoln.ac.uk> ).  Important additional information/supplementary notes about the symposium can be emailed to interested parties and applicants on request. Please contact: Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe (dmeyerdinkgrafe at lincoln.ac.uk <mailto:dmeyerdinkgrafe at lincoln.ac.uk> )

 

 

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