Kalender, Ute | Germany

Kalender, Ute | Germany

Dr. Ute Kalender was a lecturer at the Institut für Kulturwissenschaften and in the Gender Studies Department at Humboldt-University in Berlin (http://www2.hu-berlin.de/gkgeschlecht/kolleg/ukalender.pdf ). Her primary research interests include Gender and Science Studies, Queer Disability Theory, Intersectionality of Gender, Heteronormativity and Disability and cultural perspectives on epigenetics. She is currently working on a project, which examines the role played by the categories of gender, disability and heteronormativity in the ‘renaissance’ of epigenetics. In 2009 she was research fellow at BIOS Centre, London School of Economics.


Project at IAS-STS: Beyond androcentric gene-determinism? Notions of gender in epigenetic knowledge

In recent years, epigenetic approaches have increasingly become popular in the life sciences and in biomedical research. Epigenetics aims at the ‚uncovering’ of the ‚complete decoding’ of the epigenome: the entirety of the epigenetic ‚codes’. Epigenetics assumes that these epigenetic codes decisively influence which genes are activated during the development of an organism and how its cells work. Furthermore, epigenetics states that this epigenetic equipment is hereditary. Epi-genetics, thus, explores processes of heredity beyond the genes.

My project analyzes epigenetic knowledge from a gender perspective, because the category of gender is crucial for epigenetics, its models, and practices in several ways: The 'discoveries' of epigenetics shall not just illuminate gender specific embryonic processes of development and `the nature’ of the sexes, but also support the progress of regenerative medicine. New diagnostic instruments, socalled biomarkers, shall be created on the basis of the results and be employed for therapies of `gender specific’ `genetic diseases’ like breast cancer.

My project asks what kind of gender assumptions are implicit to epigenetic models and knowledge – to epigenomic susceptibility. The inquiry focuses on these questions:

  • Which obligations to act upon oneself do epigeneticists articulate?
  • How do these ideals of behaviour differ between the genders?
  • Above all: How is the epigenetic approach to complex diseases applied in basic science research and clinical praxis?

The basis of this research project is interviews with epigeneticists, which I have conducted during the last year. At the Institute for Advanced Studies for Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS) I would like to reflect first insights and ask if and how notions of genetic risks and genetic responsibility are changed through scientific models that are based on assumptions of plasticity.



Selected publications

2010 (with Sonja Palfner) Flexible Things. A Genealogy of Breast Cancer Genes in Biomedical Research, in: BioSocieties, Special Issue on Breast Cancer (Peer-Review-Stage)

2010 Nothing beyond the able mother? A queer-crip perspective on notions of the reproductive subject in German feminist bioethics, in: Shelley Tremain (Guest Editor), From the Margins to the Center: Feminist Disability Studies and/in Feminist Bioethics, International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (IJFAB), Vol. 3, no. 2, Fall 2010, (accepted)

2010 How cultural is queer theory? Materialist concerns in German queer theory and activism, in: Lisa Downing L./ Robert Gillet (eds.): Queer in Europe, Ashgate’s Queer Intervention Series, (accepted)

2008 Jenseits heterosexueller Elternschaft. Eine queer-feministische Kritik der Bioethik, in: Gen-ethischer Informationsdienst (GiD) 189, August 2008