Guest Lecture: Joanna Radin on “Cosmologies of Cold”
When: 5 Dec 19, 4:15 pm Where: PEG 1.G107
Cryopreservation practices are an essential dimension of contemporary life sciences. They make possible the freezing and storage of cells, tissues and other organic materials at very low temperatures and their subsequent thawing at a future date without apparent loss of vitality.
The ERC-funded research project CRYOSOCIETIES explores the implications of cryopreservation for temporalities and the concept of life. Hence, we are particularly excited to welcome Joanna Radin from Yale University here in Frankfurt. Joanna Radin has generated unique and groundbreaking analytical insights into the modalities and implications of freezing technologies and ‘cryopolitics’. Her talk on December 5 will address “Cosmologies of Cold”, sharing with us some of her internationally renowned research expertise in the realm of cryopreservation.
Joanna Radin is specialized in History and Sociology of Science, with a research focus on biomedicine and biotechnology. She has particular interests in global histories of biology, ecology, medicine, technology, and anthropology since 1945; history and anthropology of life and death; biomedical technology and computing; feminist, indigenous, and queer STS; and science fiction. Her work is central to understanding the role of cryotechnologies in current biomedicine and biotechnologies, particularly through her book Life on Ice: A History of New Uses for Cold Blood (Chicago 2017) which is “the first history of the low-temperature biobank”. She is also co-editor, with Emma Kowal, of Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World (MIT 2017), which considers the technics and ethics of freezing across the life and environmental sciences.