Cecilia Åsberg                                   

Docent, Ph.D. M.A., LiU future research leader (2008-2012) and Associate Professor

At Tema Genus, our unit for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the larger Tema department, I work as teacher, supervisor and researcher (appointed one of four "future research leaders of Linköping University" 2008-2012, and after June 2012 tenured). I stepped down as Deputy Director of Gender Studies (Tema Genus) Jan 2013, but started in the fall of 2012 as one out of four Co-Directors of GExcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (the permanent continuation of our Centre for Gender Excellence: GExcel). With my small research group of posthumanist gender studies at The Posthumanities Hub, a platform I founded for post-conventional humanities research at Tema Genus, I welcome scholarly exchanges and encounters that expand our knowledges on the human condition as today entangled with urgent concerns of health, age, embodiment, gender, biology, technology, the environment and other lively forces we "become with", for instance animals.    

Guided by the challenges and multiple methodologies of interdisciplinary cultural scholarship and advanced feminist theory, I benefit from my cross-disciplinary background from within and across the Humanities, in History, Literature, Philosophy, Art and Visual Culture, including Media and Cultural Studies. However, as a curious cultural scholar (and perhaps "scientist-wannabe"), I have for many years now devoted my research to the cultures and natures, objects and subjects, the histories and potential futures of especially (but not exclusively) the natural sciences. As a feminist scholar incurably informed by posthumanist ethics I want to bring the humanities and natural sciences in conversation with each other. In my research, I am intersted in what (and who) gets to count as "natural" in the natural sciences as well as "human" in the humanities, but also in what counts as human in the natural sciences and natural in the humanities. But also in the creative and critical potential in thinking with the prefix "post" as not just "after", but fundamentally inclusive of what came before, and how that changes things. After all, the creative and critical salience of gender studies lies in how it deals with change.  

Research interests: Gender Studies, cultural and feminist theory, body studies, the ontological turns and twists of the (post-)humanities, environmental humanities, medical humanities, translational humanities, Human Animal Studies, transcorporeality, material-semiotics, Technoscience Studies (STS), medical sociology, Visual Culture, Media and Cultural Studies, Science and Literature Studies, vulnerable and performative natures and the cultural processes of naturalisation, postcolonial theory, ageing, dementia and the politics of Alzheimer's disease as indexical to the human condition of today, Cultures, subjects and knowledge production within Neuroscience, Biochemistry, Zoology and Biology, science fiction, litterature, and many other forms of creative and critical exploration.

Recent publications:
- An introductory textbook to critical posthumanist theory and material-semiotics "Posthumanistiska nyckeltexter" (Studentlitteratur 2012) by Cecilia Åsberg, Martin Hultman & Francis Lee. Recently (2013) reviewed by Ann-Louise Sandahl in NORA, and in TECHNOSCIENZA: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies.
- See our special issue on feminist technoscience studies and "Post-humanities", NORA:Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research (2011, vol 19:4); "Post-humanities is a feminist issue" (Editorial by Cecilia Åsberg, Redi Koobak and Ericka Johnson), "Beyond the Humanist Imagination" (Position paper by Cecilia Åsberg, et al) ---selected by the editors of Taylor & Francis for a compilation of articles “Scandinavian perspectives on gender” (2012) that examine different aspects of gender research in Scandinavia.
- Invited into the editorial board of the brand new open-access journal Environmental Humanities (launched in Nov 2012).
-The anthology Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture (2009) was recently reviewed inWomen's Studies in Communication.   

Director of The Posthumanities Hub. Research at The Posthumanities Hub rests on the assumption that the highly specialized analytical tools of the Humanities need to be recalibrated in order to meet up with changes in our society. They need to be applied to a wider set of such entangled phenomena, especially to emerging (trans)biologies, science cultures and embodied identities that challenge patterns of gender, age, ethnicity/race/nationality, class, kinship and sexuality. This does not imply neither a postfeminist nor a postbiological stance, but on the contrary, a both critical and creative framework for performative accounts of technoscientific or other naturecultural practices across identities, disciplines and categories.

Supervision: PhD Candidates Tara Mehrabi, Wibke Staube and Magdalena Górska (as the main supervisor), and I co-supervise the PhD Candidates Redi Koobak, Dag Balkmar, Ingvil Hellstrand (University of Stavanger) and Patricia Treusch (Humbolt University/Berlin Technical University). Previously supervisor of Dr. Katherine Harrison (public defence 2010). 

Teaching (phd-level) and Research Schools:

- Program Director (and teacher) of the Tema Genus (Interdisciplinary Gender Studies) Research School (2009-2010), Linköping University (LiU), SE.

- Teacher the Tema Genus (Interdisciplinary Gender Studies) Research School (2011), 120 ects, for instance the PhD-course: "Posthumanist Gender Studies" (2009, 2011)

- InterGender Research School:  "Introducing Feminist Materialisms" (15 ects), phd-course with Prof. Stacy Alaimo and Prof. Nina Lykke 2011.

- InterGender Research School (2008-2011) - Board member (extra for the chair), Executive Board member, Teacher.

- Post/doctoral work shop series Meeting Materialities (2011-2012). Coordinated by CÅ, hosted by the Posthumanities Hub and financed by the Swedish Research Council (The Posthumanities Network: Next Genderation).

- The Posthumanities Hub PhD-course: "Posthumanities in practice: feminist perspectives" (3 ects) with Dr. Richard Twine (Lancaster Uni, UK) and Dr. Måns Andersson (LiU).

- Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (Odense, Syddansk Universitet, Denmark 2008, Christina Insitute, University of Helsinki, Finland 2009).

- Co-coordinator and teacher with Prof. Nina Lykke of the D09 InterGender Research Student Collective (D09 = Doctoral students starting their research training in interdisciplinary gender studies in 2009 at a university affiliated to, or not (on self-paying basis), european InterGender-consortium).

- Guest lecturer Umeå Uni., Uppsala Uni., the Nobel museum (research department) Stockholm, and at Linköping Uni. - for instance at Philosophical Faculty, IKK, or the MA-program KSM (Media Studies, Campus Norrköping), at the international MA-program (Biology) "Applied Ethology and Animal Biology" (at IFM). I have also given international conference key notes and key note commentaries in various European academic settings.

- NOISE Summer School: European research school of interdisciplinary gender studies (co-coordinator, head tutor and teacher 2005, Co-ordinator and teacher 2006 "Science fiction, science fact", and teacher 2008).

- Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (co-cordinator and teacher 2007, at Syddansk Univeristy, Odense, Denmark and 2009, at the Christina Insitute, University of Helsinki, Finland).

- ADVANCE Summer School for postdoctoral women in the natural sciences and industry, Danube University, Krems, Austria (2007)

- Graduate Gender Studies Program (GGeP), including international BA, MA, RMA programs, and doctoral courses,  2005-2008 at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

In addition, I have had the great pleasure to supervise students of various Swedish, Dutch and international MA, RMA and BA -programs, for instance the MA's in Kultur, Samhälle och Mediegestaltning (KSM), Linköping University at the time when I also was teaching courses within the MA-stream Culture and Technology (0,3 fte). At Utrecht University, the Netherlands, I supervised 16 successful MA and Research MA-students (7 of them graduated Cum Laude) between the years 2005-2008 when I was working there as Assistant Professor (Universitaire Docent) and teaching courses like: New Media, New Citizenship (7,5 ects MA), Historiography of Feminist Ideas (7,5 ects BA/MA), Feminist Theory: Between Diversity and Difference (7,5 ects MA), Technobodies in Cyberspace (7,5 ects MA/RMA), New Feminist Perspectives in a Globalized Context (7,5 ects BA/MA), Feminist Toolbox (7,5 ects MA), Body Zones (7, 5 ects MA/RMA), and the Body Course (PhD, with professor Rosi Braidotti). I have also been part of the in real life and online teaching of Gender, Ethnicity and Cultural Criticism. This was for The Graduate Gender Programme (GGeP), a Gender Studies programme in the Netherlands, a location from which I also worked in several teaching administrative positions (the Daily Management Board, Curriculum Commitee and Scientific Advisory Board for MA and RMA programs, the ADVANCE (EU) project and other (post) graduate programs.

Before 2005, I was teaching in a range of Swedish settings, from the polytechnics and engineering programs, to the nursing and health studies programs and the art, media and gender studies programs. In fact, across all the faculties of Linköping University.

Editor of NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research (Routledge Journals: Taylor & Francis) 2010, 2011 and 2012. Recently invited into the Editorial Board of the brand new open-access journal Environmental Humanities.