“Disrupting Disruption: Gender, Reproduction, and Compulsory Able-bodiedness in American Environmentalism” Friday
Join WGS for this month’s Colloquium Gathering Friday, November 20th. Dr. Emily Lind Johnston will present “Disrupting Disruption: Gender, Reproduction, and Compulsory Able-bodiedness in American Environmentalism” 11:45am-1:00pm in the Women’s Center (Bridges 154).
Description: In 1999, a website appeared online purporting to document the pregnancy of Mr. Lee Mingwei, the first male human to become pregnant through a combination of hormone supplements, in vitro fertilization, and surgical interventions. Titled POP!, the site is in fact part of a multi-platform art piece by performance artist Lee Mingwei in collaboration with digital artist Virgil Wong. As a form of autobiographical performance art, POP! explores gender and reproduction as biomedical fantasy. In this talk, I put POP!’s examination of biomedicine into conversation with environmental discourse about toxic chemical exposure to interrogate implicit messages about gender, reproduction, and disability embedded in contemporary environmental discourse. Reading POP!’s interest in hormone-induced bodily changes back onto environmentalist concerns about endocrine disrupting chemicals reveals the continuing influence of eugenic philosophies of fitness and better breeding within American environmentalism.
Hope to see you there!