Tembusu College

Science, Technology and Society Seminar Series

A Constant Torment. Tracing the Discursive Contours of the Aging Prostate

Speaker: Dr Ericka Johnson

(Linkoping University, Sweden)

Wednesday, 20th January

4pm-6pm, Level 1 Student Common Lounge

Register at https://tembusu.nus.edu.sg/tsts/

ABSTRACT

Dr Johnston will be speaking about a research project which employs Medical Sociology, History of Medicine, STS & Medicine, and Feminist Science Studies in collaborative work around an evocative object, the aging prostate. It looks at the material discursive practices surrounding medical technologies and their roles in how we conceive of and challenge gendered subject positions and bodily knowledge. Each of the projects within this study traces the contours and textures of discourses that produce the aging prostate in different incarnations. Some examine cultural and historical constructions of the prostate as a node of pain, discomfort, and angst, using interviews and archive material. Others explore the medical discourses (including material semiotic practices), which enact the prostate as a discrete anatomical object to be physically examined and surgically removed, using how the prostate is known and invoked in its absence, after surgical removal, using post-structuralist analysis of interview material. The paper circulated prior to the seminar is work done on experiences of and clinical guidelines for Benign Prostate Hyperplasia.

Dr Ericka Johnson

Ericka Johnson is a lecturer at the Department of Thematic Studies, Technology and Social Change. Her research has looked at medical technologies and their relationship to the patient body and gender, with a particular focus on pharmaceuticals. Currently she is working on discursive constructions of the aging prostate. Her publications include Glocal Pharma. International Brands and the Imagination of Masculinity (2015, Ashgate), th edited volume Technology and Medical Practice: BloodGuts and Machines (with Boel Berner, 2010, Ashgate), and Dreaming of a Mail Order Husband (2007, Duke University Press).