Event Description:
Testosterone is not what you think it is, and it is decidedly not a “male sex hormone.” Here is the debunking life story of a molecule we thought we all knew. Testosterone is a familiar villain, a ready explanation for innumerable social phenomena, from the stock market crash and the overrepresentation of men in prisons to male dominance in business and politics. It’s a lot to pin on a simple molecule.
Yet your testosterone level doesn’t in fact predict your competitive drive or tendency for violence, your appetite for risk or sex, or your strength or athletic prowess. It’s neither the biological essence of manliness nor even “the male sex hormone.” This unauthorized biography pries T, as it’s known, loose from over a century of misconceptions that undermine science even as they make urban legends about this hormone seem scientific.
In Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography, Rebecca Jordan-Young and Katrina Karkazis focus on what testosterone does in six domains: reproduction, aggression, risk-taking, power, sports, and parenting. At once arresting and deeply informed, Testosterone allows us to see the real T for the first time.
Event Speakers:
- Rebecca Jordan-Young, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College
- Katrina Karkazis, Carol Zicklin Endowed Chair in the Honors Academy at Brooklyn College
- Vanessa Agard-Jones, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University
- Paisley Currah, Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College
- Chaired by Arden Hegele, Medical Humanities Fellow at Columbia University
Event Information:
Free and open to the public; RSVP required. Registered attendees will received Zoom link.
Please visit the event webpage for additional information.
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