Precarious Authority: White Scientific Masculinity and the Anthrax Scare

• In Event: Producing Precarity: Science, Technology and the Politics of Vulnerable Lives

Abstract

How do structures of hegemony maintain their authority? In this talk I problematize the authority of “white scientific masculinity,” and its reproduction during moments of crises. The 2001 anthrax mailings not only set in motion a bioterrorism panic. The FBI search for the perpetrator, which implicated the white male scientist figure and the biodefense institutions he stewards, simultaneously generated and shored up anxiety about “white scientific masculinity” as a nationalist symbol of protection against bioterrorism. I examine how the FBI and news media re-instantiated the authoritative status of white scientific masculinity through their construction of criminal profiles of the perpetrator.

Presenter

• Gwen D'Arcangelis, Cal Poly Pomona