Neurosocieties: Interdisciplinary Explorations of the Brain, Culture and Ethics 1

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

In the last two decades the neurosciences have become a highly prestigious and influential force in contemporary societies. The significant symbolic and financial resources invested within neuroscience research (e.g. the EU’s Human Brain Project, and the US’ BRAIN Initiative) as well as its translation into practice and policy raise a number of pressing issues for social scientists, bioethicists and STS theorists in particular. Thus, the Neurosocieties interdisciplinary open panel will address themes such as: the influence of brain-based explanations of personhood, health and behaviour in contemporary communities; how these explanations align and conflict with other ways of making sense of personhood; new social forms emerging in response to the rising prestige of neurosciences; and the responsible management of the expectations of patients, families and carers regarding promising neuro-interventions. Additionally, recent developments within the neurosciences – particularly the emerging interest in culture and social context – have created new opportunities for productive engagement between neuroscience, social science and ethics. Accordingly, the interdisciplinary panel will call for papers from STS, anthropology, philosophy, bioethics and related disciplines that explore new options for conceptualising: the relationship between brain, body and environment; the relationship between thinking, feeling, mood and cognition; understandings of agency and moral responsibility; and interdisciplinary perspectives more generally, on the brain, personhood and culture. The panel will prepare the ground for an interdisciplinary special issue on Neurosocieties.

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Neurosocieties: Interdisciplinary Explorations of the Brain, Culture and Ethics

Chairs

• John Grant Gardner, Monash University, Australia

• Cynthia Forlini, University of Sydney

Individual Presentations

• Brain-based parenting: caring for our kids’ cortisol? - Celia Roberts, Lancaster Univ.

• Cerebralizing Attachment: How Have Parent-Child Relationships Come to be Explained as Brain Facts? - Bican Polat, Tsinghua-Michigan Society of Fellows

• Neuroscience At Work: Neurobiology, Trauma and Feminist Work Against Sexual Violence - Suzanne Therese Egan, University of Sydney

• Visualizing the Racialization of Testosterone in Biomedical Studies - Brandon Kramer

Session Organizer

• John Grant Gardner, Monash University, Australia