Coming Up at CGS in 2016

Biopolitical Times

As 2016 gets underway, we’re noticing how deeply last year’s events are shaping the start of this new year. You can catch up with developments in inheritable genetic modification, genetic testing & biobanks, stem cells, synthetic biology and surrogacy in our Biopolitical News of 2015 blog post. We also compiled our favorite commentaries in Top Biopolitical Times blog posts of 2015.

Online conversations

In 2015 our Talking Biopolitics webinar series featured online interviews with

To watch any of these conversations, check out our YouTube page.

We’re looking forward to kicking off this year’s Talking Biopolitics on Tuesday, January 26 with Paul Knoepfler, author of the just-released GMO Sapiens: The Life-Changing Science of Designer Babies. Paul will discuss the book and its implications with historian of science Nathaniel Comfort. You can RSVP here, and check out the Facebook event for updates.

Film series

Coming up next in our Being Human in a Biotech Age film series at UC Berkeley is No Más Bebés. The film documents the coercive sterilization of Mexican immigrant women in 1960-70s Los Angeles, and the landmark lawsuit they brought against those responsible. The screening will take place on Tuesday, February 16th at 4 pm in 470 Stephens Hall. We are very fortunate that we’ll be joined in person by filmmakers Renee Tajima-Pena and Virginia Espino for a Q&A following the screening. You can learn more about the screening at the Facebook event.

On Tuesday, April 12, we’ll be screening DNA Dreams. This documentary explores the inner workings of Shenzhen BGI (formerly Beijing Genomics Institute), which calls itself "The World’s Largest Genomics Organization,” and its animal cloning and cognitive genomics projects.

If you’re interested in other films with biopolitical themes, the earlier screenings in the Being Human series were FIXED: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement, Made in India, and Surviving Eugenics.

Job openings at CGS

The new year will also bring a new position to CGS. We have been selected as a host organization for the the American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellows Program, which allows us to seek a Project Director on Race, Genetics, and Society. The ACLS fellowship application process is open for recent PhDs in the humanities or humanistic social sciences. The fellowship competition will accept applications between January 14 and March 24; all applications must go through ACLS. The Project Director on Race, Genetics, and Society will plan, coordinate, and implement CGS’s programmatic work related to the impacts of genetic research, technologies, products, and services on social understandings of race and on racial justice, with the goal of tracking and contesting the re-emergence of race as biological rather than sociopolitical category.

Other positions will be posted soon. For more information, visit our Jobs and Internships page.

Image via Flickr/Dafne Cholet.

Previously on Biopolitical Times: