In recent years, scholars within the Humanities and Social Sciences have conceptualized sex hormones as cultural phenomena. This presentation understands sex hormones as not only biological substances but as simultaneously material, metaphorical, and co-constituted (e.g., Martin 2001, Mol 2002; Roberts 2007; Sanabria 2016). Focusing specifically on the work undertaken by the Danish Center for Endocrine Disruptors, in the presentation, I respond to the question: What cultural imaginaries emerge, in Danish scientific and popular accounts, when sex hormones are seen to disrupt human and nonhuman animal gendered bodies? In privileging the ways that cultural imaginaries emerge, I hope to contribute with a critical cultural perspective to the already existing understanding of sex hormones as biological and industrialized phenomena.

Charlotte Kroløkke is Professor in the Department for the Study of Culture at the University of Southern Denmark. She has worked on feminist cultural science studies perspectives on cryopreservation and reproductive technologies and is currently co-PI of the research project titled "Endocrine Economies. The Cultural Politics of Hormones" (Velux Foundation, 2021-2025 with Karen Hvidtfeldt). Her work has appeared in Science, Technology, & Human Values, European Journal of Cultural Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Science as Culture, and Social Studies of Science. She is the author of the book Global Fluids published in 2018 by Berghahn Press.

Chair: Katherine Carroll