Dr Christine Hauskeller
Research Interests
My area is empirical philosophy of biology and medicine, with expertise primarily in topics concerning genomics, stem cell research and artificial life. I employ continental critical theory perspectives and engage closely with the sciences and practitioners therein.
The intersection of epistemology and normativity is my main interest and focus. I analyse the tensions between dominant idealized epistemologies in the sciences and the actual practices in science. How do the bonds to society and culture render meaningful and impinge on research directions and knowledge development?
My doctoral thesis in Philosophy was a quite theoretical work on the paradoxical structure of the subject. The resulting book "Das paradoxe Subjekt" focusses on Michel Foucault’s and Judith Butler’s work and how an adequate understanding of the interaction between the reality and materiality of bodies, of language and of identity practices can be conceptualized. This work is transformed now in the scientifically informed analyis of the ways in which genomics interacts with present cultural policies aimed at the affirmation and ascertainment of social identities.
Since 1999 I have been working in philosophy and sociology of biomedicine, and also in bioethics. I published on bioscientific language and its adoption in institutional discourses and on the relationship between scientific and medical practices and human self-understanding, on the science-society interface and philosophical issues concerning stem cell research and applications of genomics. In order to understand these issues the close engagement with scientific communities in both biology and medicine is important and in my research projects I work together with various teams of scientists in Britain and Germany, in particular.
Projects:
Genomics and the Politics of Human Identity
Stem Cell Science: Epistemology, history, ethics and research practice
Research Supervision
I am happy to supervise work in
- Philosophy of Biology and Medicine
- STS and Sociology of the Life Sciences
- Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy
- Bioethics
- Feminist Philosophy and Gender Theory
Research Students
I currently supervise 2 PhD students:
David Wyatt. ESRC studentship 2010-2013. David’s research explores the role of the perceptions, the training and the practices of Crime Scene Investigators in their use of DNA and forensic science in day-to-day police work.
Maren Klotz part-time 2005-2012 (Cotutelle Exeter and Humboldt University Berlin, jointly supervised with Prof. Stefan Beck). Maren is investigating the interplay between cultural perceptions of the family and reproductive technology regulation, comparing Germany and Britain.
Former PhD students
Dr Marco Liverani completed 2011. 'European Biofutures. The Politics and Practice of Science Cooperation in the European Union’. Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine since August 2010 .
Dr Jean Harrington completed 2011. ‘Translational Space. An Ethnographic Study of Stem Cell Research’. Jean is now a postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Exeter.
Dr Hristina Petkova completed 2009. ‘How Gene TestsTravel: Bi-national Comparison of the Institutional Pathways Taken by the Diagnostic Genetic Test for Maturity onset Diabetes of the Young Through the British and the German Health Care System’. Research Fellow in Public Health at King’s College London since 2009.
Submitted PhD
Ayesha Ahmad submitted in January 2012. Ayesha's thesis is a deconstruction of the human embryo as represented in dedical textbooks and looks at the effects this staging has on clinical practice. She is a PhD student at the Peninsula Medical School.
