THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011

6:00 P.M. - 7:15 P.M.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
*Michelle Bachelet,, Head of UN Women; 34th President of Chile; former Minister of National Defense and former Minister of Health; pediatrician and epidemiologist

MODERATOR: TBD

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2011

10:30 A.M. - 1:15 P.M.
Session I:  CONCEPTIONS OF THE “NORMAL” BODY
We all have our own ideas about what a “normal,” “healthy” body is, but these ideas are neither given nor based on some eternal biological definition. Rather, they reflect many different forces within a culture and they change over time. How do these views influence public policy in different locations? How do social dynamics affect conceptions of maleness and femaleness and how do they differ in different societies?

RELIGION
Religions exert powerful pressure on how the conception of the “normal” or morally acceptable body is understood. How do images of the “normal” body differ across religious traditions? Case studies on the role of religion in affecting state policy with regard to the body.
Winnifred F. Sullivan, Associate Professor, Director of the Law and Religion Program, University at Buffalo Law School
John Bowen, Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis

MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY
Notions of the “healthy,” “normal” body often bring with them the imprimatur of science. What role does science play in our understanding of what is “normal” and what is not? How are these understandings reflected in policy? Does this science-policy interplay differ across cultures?
Elof Axel Carlson, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Stony Brook University
Joao Biehl, Professor of Anthropology, Co-director, Program in Global Health and Health Policy, Princeton University

THE CITIZEN
What is the relationship between individual bodies and the body politic? What constitutes the “normal” body of the citizen, and does this vary from country to country? What does the foreigner, the non-citizen, reveal about the body of the citizen? Do existing laws and policies differentially shape certain types of bodies and affect genders and races differently? Why does the health of the citizen matter?
Fine and Upstanding: Disability and the Normal Body of the Citizen
Susan Schweik, Professor, Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities, University of California, Berkeley
Bernard E. Harcourt, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

THE MEDIA
Advertising, film, television, and the internet have profound impacts on our idea of the “normal” body and how it is or should be treated. What is the media’s impact on policy with regard to the body? How does this vary across cultures?
Susie Orbach, Visiting Professor, Sociology, London School of Economics
Sumita S. Chakravarty, Associate Professor of Culture and Media, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts

MODERATOR: Ann Stoler, Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies, The New School for Social Research

2:15 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.
Session II:  THE SEXUAL BODY
How do various forces compete to impose their conception of what is “normal” sexual behavior? How do we come to see particular sexual practices as “legitimate” (or not) and therefore legally acceptable? Cross-cultural comparisons and case studies.

HISTORY
Understandings of gender and the sexual body change. These changes are reflected in art, literature, and myth, as well as in policy. What can the history of discourse about the sexed body contribute to contemporary discussions about policy questions concerning sexuality?
Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago Divinity School
TBD

GENDER
What are the policy implications of the forces shaping contemporary understandings of gender and the male or female body, including feminism, transsexuality, genital mutilation, and debates about gender and biology? Is a gender-neutral legal system possible?
Afsaneh Najmabadi, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
Paisley Currah, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

RACE AND CLASS
Race and class are often tied to reproductive rights, access to health care, and sexual violence (e.g. rape, human trafficking). How is the struggle for race and class justice connected to struggles surrounding policies concerning the body?
Charles W. Mills, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Northwestern University
Anupama Rao, Associate Professor of South Asian History, Women’s Studies Department, Barnard College

SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
Who we are, what we do, and with whom affect how sexual behavior is controlled and judged. How does this play out in different cultures and legal systems?
Edward Stein, Vice Dean, Professor of Law, and Director, Program in Family Law, Policy, and Bioethics, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Michael G. Peletz, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Emory University

MODERATOR: *William Hirst, Professor of Psychology, The New School for Social Research

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2011

10:30 A.M. - 1:15 P.M.
Session IV:  WHO HAS RIGHTS TO THE BODY?
The struggle over who will control the body is fierce and sometimes violent, from questions concerning the beginning, sustaining, and ending of life to ways the state and quasi-state agencies take possession of the body. How do these debates play out in public policy? How do rights—whether individual human rights or state-granted rights—factor into these struggles? How do these struggles and debates differ between cultures and legal systems?

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
What factors influence laws governing abortion and reproductive technologies? How does policy vary in different states and cultures?
Susan Greenhalgh, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine
Rayna Rapp, Professor of Anthropology, New York University

SUSTAINING AND ENDING LIFE
Who has access to healthcare? When is ending life justified?
Joseph Fins, M.D., Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, Weill Cornel Medical College
Joseph Betancourt, M.D., M.P.H., Program Director for Multicultural Education, Multicultural Affairs Office, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

POSSESSION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE BODY
Under what conditions does the state take possession of the body or tacitly sanction another’s taking ownership of an individual’s body e.g. military service (both voluntary and forced), quasi-state terrorist organizations, slavery, and imprisonment? How are systems of detention and punishment used to govern both citizens and noncitizens? What forces are at play when the state employs the calculated application of pain or capital punishment?
Paul W. Kahn, Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities, Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights, Yale Law School
David Garland, Professor of Sociology, New York University School of Law

THE DEAD BODY
Thomas Walter Laqueur, Helen Fawcett Professor of History, University of California
Claudio Lomnitz, Director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Professor, Columbia University

MODERATOR: James E. Miller, Professor of Political Science and Liberal Studies, The New School for Social Research

2:15 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.
Session V:  BUYING AND SELLING THE BODY
Market forces have profound impacts on our idea of the body and how it is or should be treated. How do these forces operate, and how do they affect legislation with regard to the body? How do these forces differ in different social and cultural contexts? What is the impact of globalization on policy concerning bodies in the marketplace?

BODY PARTS
What factors are at work in allowing and policing sperm and egg donation, blood donation, organ trade, and market in body parts?
Intimate Markets in Biological Spaces
Michele Goodwin, Everett Fraser Professor in Law, University of Minnesota
The Enemy’s Body – Illegal Organ and Tissue Theft During Times of War, Conflict and Natural Disaster
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Chancellor’s Professor in Medical Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; Director, Organs Watch

BIOLOGICAL MARKERS: GENES AND DNA
Who owns our genes? How is biological information controlled and used?
Renata Salecl, Centennial Professor of Law, London School of Economics; Senior Research, Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Pilar Ossorio, Associate Professor of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin Law School

SEX TRAFFICKING/PROSTITUTION
Why and how do different governments respond to the sex trade both within their borders and transnationally? What are the arguments to legalize and regulate prostitution?
*Siddharth Kara, Affiliate of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program, Fellow with the Carr Center Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking, Harvard University
Carole S. Vance, Associate Clinical Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
New products and technologies are continuously reshaping our conceptions of what is or is not a “normal” body, and their acceptability is governed differently in different countries. What is the role of the pharmaceutical industry concerning the testing and marketing of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. and elsewhere?
Adriana Petryna, Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago

MODERATOR: *Ann Snitow, , Associate Professor, Literature and Gender Studies, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Artsl

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2011

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be hosting custom tours of their art collection to illustrate how issues of control of the body and self expression are represented in art. Tour tickets are $15 and include admission to the museum.