Kathryn Cai // Apocalypse and speculative fiction have been central to modern imaginings of biomedical and scientific developments in the U.S. While these narratives have speculated on a hypothetical global apocalypse to come, literary and nonfiction narratives from other parts of the world continue to grapple with apocalypses that have already come to pass. Rather…
Author: kathryncai
A social and scientific history of hormones
Kathryn Cai // In her forthcoming book Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything (June 2018), Randi Hutter Epstein faces a daunting challenge in charting the history of hormonal science from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century United States. Beginning with the freak shows of the 1890s, which Epstein…
Thinking beyond US disability studies: cure as case study
Kathryn Cai // Alongside Travis Lau and Roanne Kantor’s engagements with disability studies on this forum, I would like to continue building on their lines of thought to consider how the “medical humanities” can become more open and attuned to the questions of disability studies and a broader critical health humanities that encompasses a greater…
Speculative bodies of the present in hormonal fictions
Kathryn Cai Recently, a series of English language novels that foreground the female body reimagine and transform their hormonal traffic from biologies linked with environmental illness to speculative imaginations of diffused, inchoate influence and overt physical and political power. As studies note, the female body’s hormonal complexities render its porous interactions with the environment particularly…
Cyborgs Pt. 2: Cellular Agencies in Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea
Kathryn Cai Reviews of Chang-rae Lee’s 2014 novel On Such a Full Sea note its “bureaucratic aesthetic,”[1] its unsatisfactory narrative trajectory in which nothing seems to build, and Fan as an opaque, “monochromatic,”[2] and ultimately unsatisfactory heroine lacking in interiority,[3] particularly compared to the “adventure” heroines, such as Katniss Everdeen, that populate conventional heroic and dystopic…
Apocalypse, Cyborgs, and Gender (Pt. 1)
Kathryn Cai As a recent New York Times article notes, apocalyptic narratives—in the form of natural disasters and conflict with North Korea, for instance—and survivalist responses to it are on the rise in popular US discourses.[1] This tongue-in-cheek article notes that survivalism is gaining traction in young, affluent culture, “where the bombproof bunker has replaced…
Making meaning in the everyday: understanding autism through the interpersonal in Swim Team (2017)
Kathryn Cai The recent documentary Swim Team, which is currently being screened across the US,[1] closely tracks the lives of three teenagers in suburban New Jersey as they navigate their everyday lives. The teens are all on the autism spectrum, and the team was formed by Mike and Maria McQuay in part because their son…
Pursuing difference through biology: gender and the multiplicity of materiality
Kathryn Cai In the Sunday, September 24 issue of the New York Times, a cover story shines a spotlight on men who think that “women are ruining the tech world.” As much-publicized sexual harassment scandals spawn new diversity trainings and initiatives, these men voice opinions that center on their feelings of persecution in a…