1. PROJECT BIOCULTURES
PRESENTS:
Professor Victoria Pitts-Taylor
QUEERING LOVE AND KINSHIP:
OXYTOCIN AND THE
NEUROBIOLOGY OF
ATTACHMENT
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 4 - 6 pm
2028 University Hall UIC
601 South Morgan Street, Chicago, IL
The interdisciplinary field of social neuroscience is tracing the bonds of kinship to their brain processes
and structures, with special attention to the oxytocin system. In this account, humans and other
mammals are able to experience kinship bonds through the involvement of neural systems linked to
affect and memory. Of special interest is the role of the neurohormone oxytocin in the experience of
attachment, defined as “the dispositions to extend care to others, to want to be with them, and to be
distressed by separation.” In this paper, I discuss the heteronormative framing of oxytocin
research, which strongly links attachment to reproductive imperatives.
Victoria Pitts-Taylor is Professor of Sociology, Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of
New York and head of Women's Studies at the Graduate Center. She is author of the books In the Flesh:
the Cultural Politics of Body Modification and Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic
Culture, and Editor of the two-volume Cultural Encyclopedia of the Body,
PLEASE CONTACT PROFESSOR LENNARD DAVIS 312 413 8910 FOR ACCOMODATIONS