Hormonal Theory: A Rebellious Glossary – a hybrid book launch

Speakers: Roslyn Malcolm, Andrea Ford, Sone Erikainen and Celia Roberts. 

From angiotensin to cortisol, testosterone to xenoestrogens, and dopamine to endocrine disruptors, hormones are everywhere. They are central not only to medical and other body-shaping practices and contemporary science, but also environmentally-oriented conversations.  

Throughout Hormonal Theory, the authors trace how biomedical, social, political, and experiential forces entangle to produce hormones as we know them today. A play on the glossary format, each entry takes a particular hormone as a starting point yet works to elaborate and complicate understandings of hormones as distinct biological or chemical entities.  

Taking an alphabetical format, we mix endogenous and exogenous hormones, reproduction, environments and self-making. The book unearths how the biological cascades into the social, and vice versa, in unexpected ways. We ultimately ask ‘what is a hormone?’ and rather than offering answers will reflect on contributions made by the book.

About the speakers:

Roslyn Malcolm is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and a Fellow in the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing at Durham University.

Andrea Ford is a cultural and medical anthropologist at the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at the University of Edinburgh School of Medicine.

Sonja Erikainen is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. Prior to taking up their current post, they held three different research fellowships at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leeds.

Celia Roberts works in the area of Feminist Technoscience Studies, with particular focus on reproduction, sexuality, sex/ gender, embodiment and health.

Zoom details for online attendees will be circulated 24 hours before the start of the event.