Hobart and William Smith Colleges

5 October 2012 Fisher Center 2012 continues

The Fisher Center for the Study of Women and Men will welcome two more speakers to campus this fall to continue the discussion on Gender, Collectivity and the Common. Engaging the Colleges in an examination of how gender may enliven previous approaches to collectivity or imagine a new communing are Kaushik Sunder Rajan and Michael Hardt.

Joining the center on Wednesday, Nov. 14, is Kaushik Sunder Rajan, who will deliver his lecture, The Scandal of the Trial: HPV Vaccines, Knowledge / Value, and Experimental Subjectivity, at 7 p.m. in the Geneva Room of the Warren Hunting Smith Library.

Rajan, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, will discuss the 2010 decision by the Indian Council for Medical Research to halt the experimental administration of Gardasil, a vaccine used to prevent human papilloma virus infection, to tribal girls in Bhadrachalam, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Rajan will use the controversy to outline some of the major healthcare and pharmaceutical issues that exist in India and Indian politics today.

In December, Michael Hardt will speak directly to this years Fisher Center theme of the Commons, with a public talk on The Right to the Common, on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 7 p.m. in the Geneva Room of the Warren Hunting Smith Library.

Chair of the Literature Program at Duke, Hardt will examine how the right to the common has become the heart of many struggles in contemporary society. Hardt is co-author with Antonio Negri ofDeclarationas well as theEmpiretrilogy. He currently serves as editor ofThe South Atlantic Quarterly.

Earlier in the semester, scholar and feminist Silvia Federici joined the Fisher Center to discuss the question of the commons in terms of reproduction and feminist autonomy. Established in 1998, the Fisher Center for the Study of Women and Men brings together faculty, students, and experts in gender-related fields in the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences to foster mutual understanding and social justice in contemporary society. For more information, visithttp://www.hws.edu/academics/fisher_center/index.aspx.