29th Annual Gender Studies Symposium

The Science of Gender and Sex

March 10-12, 2010

Wednesday, March 10

Featured Event

3:30-5:00, Council Chamber
“Pink Brain, Blue Brain: Hormones, Learning, and the Biology of Sex Differences”
Lise Eliot, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Chicago Medical School

Lise Eliot’s most recent book is Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and What We Can Do About It, an examination of gender and the brain that has been greeted with rave reviews. Dr. Eliot has published more than 50 works, including peer-reviewed journal articles, magazine pieces, and an earlier book, What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life (2000). She teaches courses in medical neuroscience and biomedical ethics at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago.

Keynote Event

7:30 pm, Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
“Is Sex More Like Dancing or Digestion?  Unpacking the Medicalization of Sexuality” 
Leonore Tiefer, researcher, sex therapist, activist, and educator

Leonore Tiefer began her career with a Psychology Ph.D. on hormones and hamsters, followed by an academic position and work in an animal laboratory. Responding to the call of feminist politics and the world of sexology for people, she later re-specialized in clinical psychology with a focus on sex and gender problems.  She is currently Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at both New York University School of Medicine and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and has a private psychotherapy and sex therapy practice in Manhattan. 

Dr. Tiefer has written widely about the medicalization of men's and women's sexuality.  Her c.v. contains over 150 scientific and professional publications, and her books have been translated into several languages.  She has been interviewed by news media around the world as the foremost critic of "disease-mongering" trends in the medical management of women's sexual problems, and she has been invited to deliver keynote talks at conferences from London to Berlin to Istanbul to Calcutta.  Her educational anti-medicalization campaign, newviewcampaign.org, was formed in 2000 as a grassroots network to challenge the distorted and oversimplified messages about sexuality that the pharmaceutical industry relies on to sell its new drugs.  Dr. Tiefer has received many professional awards, including the Alfred C. Kinsey Award and Distinguished Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, as well as the Lifetime Career Award from the Association for Women in Psychology.

Thursday, March 11

Keynote Event
7:00 pm, Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
“The New Science of Darwinian Feminism: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Mating and Parenting Patterns”
Amy Parish, Lecturer in Anthropology, Arts and Letters, and Gender Studies, University of Southern California

Amy Parish is a biological anthropologist, primatologist, and Darwinian feminist.  For the last twenty years she has been studying the world’s captive population of bonobos, who are among the closest living relatives of humans.  In her research, Dr. Parish uses an evolutionary approach to shed light on the origins of human behavior.  An award-winning teacher, Dr. Parish also serves on the Board of Directors for the Arusha Project, a non-profit organization devoted to helping HIV-infected women in Tanzania, as well as the board of Up the River Endeavors, an organization devoted to sustainable development, global peace, and social justice.  Her work was recently featured in Ms. magazine, and she has appeared on Nova, National Geographic Explorer, NPR, and Discovery Health Channel productions.

Friday, March 12

Featured Performance by Alix Olson
8:00 pm, Templeton Campus Center, Trail Room

Alix Olson is an internationally touring folk poet and progressive queer artist-activist whose performances have ignited audiences around the world.  Alix has co-authored Burning Down the House (Soft Skull Press), published two books of poetry, produced two spoken word CD’s and an award-winning documentary, and has had her work placed in dozens of anthologies and compilations.  Alix regularly headlines national conferences and international poetry festivals, and she has performed at over two-hundred colleges and dozens of festivals.  Alix performed for one million people at the 2004 Washington, D.C. March for Women's Lives.  The New York Times says Alix is “fueling the never-ending struggle to promote independent thought. Igniting and inspiring audiences wherever she may travel, Olson uses her witty and sympathetic voice to highlight a grassroots struggle against intolerance that is as entertaining as it is poignant,” while TimeOut New York calls her “a mesmerizing firebrand, a joyful dyke-feminist preacher.”