Loughborough Institute of Advanced Studies Podcast

Gestation: Justice - Introductory Remarks

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', Theme Co-Lead Dr Pandora Syperek introduces this roundtable session.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Justice' as a site of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Dr Luiza Prado

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Luiza Prado delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Dr Lindsay Jane Barnes

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Lindsay Jane Barnes delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Dr Åsa Virdi Kroik

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Åsa Virdi Kroik delivers their thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Professor Barry Bogin

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', guest speaker Professor Barry Bogin delivers his thoughts on the topic.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Gestation: Ecologies - Introductory Remarks

As part of the IAS Annual Theme for 2023-2024 'Gestation: Bodies, Technologies, Ecologies, Justice', Associate Dean for Research and Innovation Professor Aidan McGarry, and Theme Co-Leads Dr Pandora Syperek and Dr Ana Christina Suzina introduce this roundtable session.
Gestation is an incontrovertibly universal yet deeply varied experience, with complex concerns arising recently through the rollback of women’s rights, gestational inequalities and neo-natal trajectories, imbrication in neo-fascist discourse and novel methods for reproduction, kinship and care. It is a complex negotiation of culture, technology, biology and politics constituted relationally through entanglements of human and non-human agents and practices that extend beyond the flesh. Gestation forms an inherently interdisciplinary field, spanning sport, health and medicine, social sciences, politics and law, history, geography, design, arts and culture, with reverberations in (micro)biology and genetics, robotics and AI, post- and transhumanism, disability studies, critical race and queer and trans theory.
This roundtable focuses on 'Ecologies' as sites of gestational realities, bringing together an exceptional group of international scholars to share their wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on the Theme.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Enemy Feminisms: Sophie Lewis in conversation with Victoria Browne and Jilly Boyce Kay

Sophie Lewis, author of the forthcoming book Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, is in conversation with Victoria Browne and Jilly Boyce Kay. The book presents a left, transfeminist takedown of the notion that feminism is an inherent political good. It identifies a wide range of feminisms – from 19th century imperialist feminism to contemporary anti-abortion and TERF feminisms - that must be understood as enemies of liberatory feminism, and fought against as such. The respondents will offer reflections on the significance of the book for contemporary left feminism, as well as for their own work on reproductive politics (Browne) and micro-fascism and 'dark feminine' dating influencers (Kay).
Sophie Lewis is a writer living in Philadelphia, who regularly writes essays for magazines including n+1, Harper’s, The Nation and The London Review of Books on subjects ranging from Marilyn Monroe to tradwives. In 2019, their op-ed explaining “How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans” appeared in The New York Times. In their capacity as a faculty member of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, Sophie teaches online courses, open to all, on feminist history, trans feminism, The Dialectic of Sex, femonationalism and more. Their most recent book is Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation (2022); Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, was first published by Verso Books in 2019. Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation will be out in 2025 with Haymarket Books. 
Victoria Browne is Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Loughborough, specialising in feminist philosophy and reproductive politics.  Her books include Pregnancy Without Birth: A Feminist Philosophy of Miscarriage (Bloomsbury, 2022), Vulnerability and the Politics of Care: Transdisciplinary Dialogues (Oxford University Press, 2021), and Feminism, Time and Nonlinear History (Palgrave 2014). She has published widely in journals such as Hypatia and Signs, and has been on the editorial collective for the journal Radical Philosophy since 2012. 
Jilly Boyce Kay is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media at Loughborough University, whose research and teaching specialisms are in feminist media and cultural studies. Her first monograph Gender, Media and Voice: Communicative Injustice and Public Speech was published in 2020. Jilly's current research focuses on the rise of reactionary feminisms within popular and political culture, including 'post-liberal' feminist ideological influencers, 'dark feminine' dating influencers, and femcel communities. She is co-editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies. 

Dr Marina Cino Pagliarello - Universities as informal diplomatic actors?

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Marina Cino Pagliarello delivers a seminar on their research - 
In today's world, 'knowledge' is key to providing the foundation for informed decision-making and creative solutions to global challenges. As universities extend their impact beyond traditional academic roles, they emerge as informal diplomatic actors, wielding their knowledge-driven initiatives to contribute to global cooperation and address shared challenges, including public health crises, climate change, and geopolitical tensions. However, very little is known about how universities achieve their diplomatic aims beyond conventional diplomacy approaches and engage in informal diplomacy through teaching and learning, research, student initiatives, and civic engagement. Within these new trends, the talk has two main aims. First, it seeks to develop a new conceptual approach to understand how higher education institutions collaborate to share and shape expert "knowledge" as informal diplomatic actors to tackle global challenges. Second, the talk will offer some empirical examples reflecting on the evolving role of universities as actors of diplomacy, considering the tensions and political challenges inherent in the current geopolitical landscape.

Dr Adam Heathcote - From diatoms to DNA: lakes as sentinels of global change

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Adam Heathcote delivers a seminar on their research - 
Although lakes make up a relatively small proportion of the Earth' surface, they are optimally situated in the landscape to serve as sentinels of natural and human-induced global change.  Lakes sit at the base of terrestrial catchments and integrate information which flows into them through stream networks or is deposited from the atmosphere. Using a variety of biological and geochemical proxies, we can use lakes to reconstruct everything from the historic and ongoing impacts of anthropogenic eutrophication to the effects of an increasingly warm planet.  I will share a few examples of classical (i.e., geochemistry, diatoms, algal pigments) and new (sediment DNA) techniques of using lake sediment archives to reconstruct environmental history and predict how these ecosystems may respond in the future.

Professor Jane Chin Davidson - Environmental Performance: Art, Science, and Trans Terminology for Ecological Justice in the Global Context

IAS Residential Fellow Professor Jane Chin Davidson delivers a seminar on their research -
Artists since the 1960s-70s have used performance to restore environmentally fragile sites and to stage activist events in locations impacted by anthropogenic climate and species devastation. An archival effort to document these works, this project seeks to develop trans-disciplinary methodologies for studying environmental art;  including the past and present activism of artists, such as for the Fruit Routes project here at the Loughborough campus, revealing the ways in which art and science can be used to engage communities at the grassroots level.
In the global context of environmental humanities, performance becomes a means to explore trans-national, trans-corporeal, and trans-human identities in the Anthropocene. A review of the 1990s work of contemporary artists in China recognizes the use of Chinese performance traditions for addressing the oncoming capitalist industrialization of the country’s landscapes. The eco-feminist discourse in China contributes to the global acknowledgment of the patriarchal regimes that have authorized extractive modes of capitalist domination over all of planetary life.