Beyond Binaries: Gender, Sexuality, and Medicine in Postwar Europe
4 July 2023
Photo: UHH/Docking
A Taming the European Leviathan Conference
Held at the Warburg Haus on the 9th – 10th June, and organised by Dr Kate Docking and Dr David Peace, ‘Beyond Binaries’ hosted scholars from a wide range of institutions to consider gender, sexuality, and medicine in Post-War Europe as part of the ERC ‘Taming the European Leviathan’ project.
The conference considered how gender and sexuality – broadly conceived both methodologically and thematically – helps to inform historical understanding of the role of medicine in post-war Europe. It examined the ways that thinking ‘beyond binaries’ in its many forms allows for new perspectives on the role of medicine in post-war European lives.
The conference brought together scholars working across disciplines to examine how theoretical approaches incorporating gender and sexuality can shed light on medical ethics, scientific practices, and policymaking associated with health across ideological divides. It examined how histories of gender and sexuality can help our understanding of individual medical experiences and the complex relations between patients, doctors, policymakers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical ethicists.
Exploring gender and sexuality in the context of post-war medicine helps us to examine potential similarities in medical practices, policies, and experiences across Europe, which moves beyond its Cold War security context and ideological differences to highlight the exchange of scientific ideas across the “Iron Curtain”. By examining gender, sexuality, and medicine in the post-war period we feel this conference helped to foster new scholarly perspectives on Europe as a continent that, to an extent, shared common ground through parallel experiences, policies, ideas, and beliefs.
A full conference report will follow.