Office of External Communications

Houston, TX 77204-5017 Fax: 713.743.8199

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2004

Contact: Angie Joe
713.743.8153 (office)
713.617.7138 (pager)
ajoe@uh.edu

HOUSTON, Nov. 2, 2004 – A University of Houston professor and a postdoctoral fellow will speak at a national conference that focuses on feminist theory and science.

Anne Jaap Jacobson, professor of philosophy and electrical and computer engineering, and J. Kasi Jackson, UH Women’s Studies Program postdoctoral fellow, will lecture at the Feminist Epistemologies, Methodologies, Metaphysics and Science Studies (FEMMSS) national conference Nov. 5-7 at the University of Washington.

Jacobson, the associate director of the UH Center for Neuro-Engineering and Cognitive Science, will deliver a keynote address “Reporting from the Middle: A Feminist Perspective on Cognitive Neuroscience.”

“Cognitive neuroscience is changing the way we think about the human mind in very fundamental ways, largely because we are learning more about how the brain works,” she said. “Standard methodologies involve studying the individual brain in isolation, but feminist theorists have long argued against a traditional picture of the mental as isolated from the social. My paper explores bringing together knowledge of the inner brain with a social perspective on the human mind.”

These findings will be published in the article “Is the Brain a Memory Box?” that will be published in the journal “Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.”

Jackson will talk on “Savvy Consumers and Autonomic Entities: Two Scientific Accounts for Female Ornamental Traits in Animal Behavior Research.” Her lecture will examine how gender stereotypes affect animal behavioral ecology research.

“In the past male animals were portrayed as sexually aggressive and willing to mate with anything, while female animals were believed to be passive, yet choosy about their sexual partners,” she said. “More recent studies have found that female animals are more sexually aggressive, and male animals are more selective than previously portrayed. While some view this as a corrective to the earlier biased research, I argue that it simply reverses the stereotypes.”

The previous FEMMSS conference was held in the mid-1990s. Given how much feminist analyses of scientific subjects have expanded since then, organizers hope to cover significant ground.
For more information about the FEMMSS conference and for a conference schedule, visit http://depts.washington.edu/femmss/.

About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service with more than 35,000 students

For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.