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(in Polish) Feminist Bioethics

General data

Course ID: 3501-FB19-S-OG
Erasmus code / ISCED: 08.1 Kod klasyfikacyjny przedmiotu składa się z trzech do pięciu cyfr, przy czym trzy pierwsze oznaczają klasyfikację dziedziny wg. Listy kodów dziedzin obowiązującej w programie Socrates/Erasmus, czwarta (dotąd na ogół 0) – ewentualne uszczegółowienie informacji o dyscyplinie, piąta – stopień zaawansowania przedmiotu ustalony na podstawie roku studiów, dla którego przedmiot jest przeznaczony. / (0223) Philosophy and ethics The ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education) code has been designed by UNESCO.
Course title: (unknown)
Name in Polish: Feminist Bioethics
Organizational unit: Institute of Philosophy
Course groups: Courses in foreign languages
General university courses
General university courses in the humanities
ECTS credit allocation (and other scores): (not available) Basic information on ECTS credits allocation principles:
  • the annual hourly workload of the student’s work required to achieve the expected learning outcomes for a given stage is 1500-1800h, corresponding to 60 ECTS;
  • the student’s weekly hourly workload is 45 h;
  • 1 ECTS point corresponds to 25-30 hours of student work needed to achieve the assumed learning outcomes;
  • weekly student workload necessary to achieve the assumed learning outcomes allows to obtain 1.5 ECTS;
  • work required to pass the course, which has been assigned 3 ECTS, constitutes 10% of the semester student load.

view allocation of credits
Language: English
Type of course:

elective seminars
general courses

Prerequisites (description):

(in Polish) znajomość języka angielskiego na poziomie B2, zainteresowanie filozofią feministyczną

Mode:

Classroom

Short description:

The seminar devoted to grasping the feminist approach to bioethics is designed to develop three main thematic areas. First of all, we will focus on the specificity of feminist approach to ethics, especially ethics of care as was developed from 1982 and its most contemporary posthumanist takes. Secondly, we will reflect on ways, in which feminist reflection on values enters into dialogue with biology and medicine (the basics of feminist science and technology studies). Thirdly, we will analyze specific phenomena such as transsexuality (transgender studies), race, issues concerned with reproductive rights and reproductive technologies, genetics, epigenetics, so called “environmental diseases”, questions of animals in research and of environment (the problem of anthropocene).

Full description:

The seminar devoted to grasping the feminist approach to bioethics is designed to develop three main thematic areas: ethics of care, the basics of feminist science and technology studies and debates concerning specific issues (sex, race, environment, etc.).

First of all, we will focus on the specificity of feminist approach to ethics, especially ethics of care as was developed from 1982 when the important book by Carol Gilligan In a Different Voice was published. We will look into how this originally psychological account was transformed into ethical and political proposition developed by other feminist thinkers for example Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick or Joan C. Tronto. Importantly, in recent posthumanist feminist research one can observe a turn to care of a sort. We will discuss works by authors such as Karen Barad, Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren, Donna Haraway, Natasha Myers, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, or Astrid Schrader to find out what does “to care” mean today.

Secondly, the basics of feminist science and technology studies will be presented. We will reflect on ways, in which feminist reflection on values enters into dialogue with biology and medicine: Does science have sex? What could that mean? And why does it matter?

Thirdly, we will analyze specific phenomena that emerge in recent feminist bioethics, such as transsexuality (transgender studies), race, issues concerned with reproductive rights and reproductive technologies, genetics and epigenetics, the so called “environmental diseases”, questions of animals in laboratory and of environment (the problem of anthropocene).

Bibliography:

(tentative list, the final literature will be announced in the first seminar)

Ethics of the Body. Postconventional Challenges, ed. M. Shildrick, R. Mykitiuk, MIT Press, Cambridge MA 2005.

Gender: Matter, ed. S. Alaimo, Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks, Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2017. (especially chapters: Bodily Technologies, Breast Cancer, Genetics and Epigenetics, Reproductive Technology, Transgender Matters).

The Transgender Studies Reader, vol. 1, ed. S. Stryker, S. Whittle, Routledge, New York 2006.

S. Alaimo, Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2010.

K. Barad, M. Juelskjær, N. Schwennesen, Intra-active Entanglements – An Interview with Karen Barad, „Kvinder, Køn & Forskning” 1-2, 2012, pp. 10-23.

V. Despret, What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions?, transl. B. Buchanan, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2016 [2007].

E. Fox Keller, The Century of the Gene, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 2000.

C. Gilligan, In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (wiele wydań).

D. Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, “Feminist Studies” 14(3), 1988, pp. 575-599.

D. Haraway, When Species Meet, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2008.

M. Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2017.

A. Schrader, Abyssal intimacies and temporalities of care: How (not) to care about deformed leaf bugs in the aftermath of Chernobyl, “Social Studies of Science” 45(5), 2015, pp. 1-26.

J.C. Tronto, Women and Caring: What Can Feminists Learn About Morality From Caring?, in: Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing, ed. Alison M. Jaggar & Susan Bordo, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 1989, pp. 172-187.

Learning outcomes:

Knowledge: Students have comprehensive knowledge and in-depth understanding of the role of feminist philosophy in the formation of culture; have comprehensive knowledge and in-depth understanding of the chosen trends and standpoints of contemporary philosophy in the field of feminist bioethics; have greater awareness of relationships between the formation of philosophical concepts and changes in culture and society.

Skills: Students interpret philosophical texts independently, comment on theses originating from different sources and have the ability to confront them; detect interdependencies between the formation of philosophical concepts and cultural and social processes as well as determine relations between those interdependencies.

Social Competence: Students are actively involved in social and cultural life, have interest in novel philosophical concepts and in their connections with other parts of cultural and social life.

Assessment methods and assessment criteria:

Activity during class (presentation initiating discussion, taking parts in debates) (25% of the final grade);

Written assessment (50% of the final grade).

This course is not currently offered.
Course descriptions are protected by copyright.
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