Rebecca Herzig
Biographic Data
| ID | 845764 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rebecca Herzig |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rebecca |
| FAMILY NAME | Herzig |
| SIGNATURE | HERZIG R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bates College |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2557-6690 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Here We Go Again: On the Biological
In this short essay, Herzig and Subramaniam explore the potent role of “biological” sex/gender in contemporary politics. Considering some of the social movements, legislative actions, and affective investments mobilized around concepts of the biological, the essay first names some of feminist science and technology studies’ (FSTS) core contributions to understandings of biological sex/gender, then discusses how the field might be better positione…
Trigger Warning
Trigger warnings, statements alerting readers, listeners, or viewers to the presence of content that might revive distressing memories, have become a flash point in recent discussions about the US academy. Providing a genealogy of the concept and practice in US colleges and universities, this article situates the trigger warning's growing cultural prominence within twined changes in computer-mediated communication and legal understandings of embo…
Alma Mater
Placing the neoliberal academy's responses to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside Norman O. Brown's May 1960 Phi Beta Kappa speech, “Apocalypse: The Place of Mystery in the Life of the Mind,” this essay considers the place of madness, sacrifice, and monstrous motherhood in approaches to the university
Housekeeping: Labor in the Pandemic University
Feminist Studies 47, no. 3. (c) 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 503 Rebecca Herzig and Banu Subramaniam Housekeeping: Labor in the Pandemic University The asymmetrical, uncompensated labors of academe have been the object of feminist scrutiny for years-well before the global outbreak of COVID-19.1 Noting the obvious "parallels with family life," critics long have observed that feminized faculty tend to take on, or to be tasked with, a disproportio…
Bad Dog: Pit Bull Politics and Multispecies Justice
Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism
"Labor in the Age of "Bio-Everything
Labor has been and continues to be an indispensable category of analysis for radical scholars, as evidenced by the proliferation of new terms-"affective" labor, "immaterial" labor, "digital" labor, and so forth-developed to describe the asymmetrical relations of capital and labor in and across contemporary settings. This essay traces the recent advent of the concept of "biological" or "clinical" labor, exploring (a) the utility of the concept for…
The Political Economy of Choice: Genital Modification and the Global Cosmetic Services Industry
A Thing for Stories
Taking historian William Cronon's 1992 essay, "A Place for Stories," as its point of departure, this essay considers the character, purposes, and uses of narratives about "things" generated by self-identified historians of technology. Following Cronon, Herzig proposes closer scrutiny of narrative within SHOT, as part of a broader discussion of the changing roles and responsibilities of professional historians
Subjected to the Current: Batteries, Bodies, and the Early History of Electrification in the United States
“Subjected to the Current” charts the advent of electrolysis in nineteenth century America. Situating this technique of human hair removal within larger histories of electrification, the essay traces operators’ debates over the design of specific artifacts (needles, batteries, and so on) and the establishment of technical standards (for speed, current, etc.). Such technical developments, however, were but one feature of the technique: as early co…
"The interpretation of "culture: Diverging perspectives on medical provision in rural Montana
Suffering For Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America
On Performance, Productivity, and Vocabularies of Motive in Recent Studies of Science
This essay addresses the increasing prominence of 'performance' as an analytical frame in recent studies of science. Building on the insights of existing feminist criticism, it identifies two largely unacknowledged features of such performance-oriented studies: first, an implicit recuperation of a pre-discursively real body; and second, a persistent emphasis on the productive character of performances. The essay considers the limitations of these…
Cleavage: Technology, Controversy, and the Ironies of the Man-Made Breast (review)
Glass balls, paraffin, olive oil, Teflon, silicon, nylon, Plexiglas--the stunning range of substances inserted into women's breasts over the past hundred years evokes the wide history of human innovation. For that reason alone, historians of technology will find much of interest in Nora Jacobson's thorough, detailed study of breast implants. A helpful addition to a growing literature on medical and cosmetic technologies, Jacobson's book confirms …
In the Name of Science: Suffering, Sacrifice, and the Formation of American Roentgenology
Accounts of early American experimentation with x-rays tend to linger over the ghastly wounds of scientific practice: ruptured blisters, cancerous limbs, and pus-ridden grafts. 1 Curiously, these descriptions of decaying flesh are joined by vigorous assertions of practitioners' unflagging devotion to science; scrupulous litanies of dismemberment and death glorify, rather than trouble, the quest for new knowledge. In place of cool-headed assessmen…
The Woman Beneath the Hair: Treating Hypertrichosis, 1870-1930
Seeking to elucidate understandings of sexual difference held in past, this article examines emergence of one disease, hypertrichosis. Prior to 1930, hypertrichosis (excessive hairiness) was a disease defined, in part, by a confusion of sexed appearances. Diagnosing and treating this condition, then, necessitated some operative definition of sex, an index of normal against which to distinguish truly pathological. The standard of normal female ide…
Gendered Practices: Feminist Studies of Technology and Society
Reviewed by: Gendered Practices: Feminist Studies of Technology and Society* Rebecca Herzig (bio) Gendered Practices: Feminist Studies of Technology and Society. Edited by Boel Berner. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University; distributed by Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1997. Pp. 288; tables, notes. SKr 211. Like many contemporary feminist scholars, the eighteen contributors to Gendered Practices share a desire to “avoid simple certainties”…
Removing Roots: "North American Hiroshima Maidens" and the X Ray
Removing Roots “North American Hiroshima Maidens” and the X Ray Rebecca Herzig (bio) On 25 February 1940, an officer with the San Francisco police department’s homicide detail reported a “rather suspicious business” operating in the city. At 126 Jackson Street sat an old, three-story rooming house, recently leased by Dr. Henri F. St. Pierre of the Dermic Laboratories. As Assistant Special Agent J. W. Williams later described the scene, “women had…
Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century
Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century by Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles
330 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE friends and partners in the promotion of the domestic chemical in dustry. After 1919, Garvan worked primarily through the Chemical Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established to administer con fiscated German patents. The foundation funneled money into re search and political lobbying to benefit chemical education and the domestic industry. In 1926, Herty left SOCMA to become a consul tant for the C…
"The interpretation of "culture: Diverging perspectives on medical provision in rural Montana
On Performance, Productivity, and Vocabularies of Motive in Recent Studies of Science
This essay addresses the increasing prominence of 'performance' as an analytical frame in recent studies of science. Building on the insights of existing feminist criticism, it identifies two largely unacknowledged features of such performance-oriented studies: first, an implicit recuperation of a pre-discursively real body; and second, a persistent emphasis on the productive character of performances. The essay considers the limitations of these…
The Political Economy of Choice: Genital Modification and the Global Cosmetic Services Industry
Housekeeping: Labor in the Pandemic University
Feminist Studies 47, no. 3. (c) 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 503 Rebecca Herzig and Banu Subramaniam Housekeeping: Labor in the Pandemic University The asymmetrical, uncompensated labors of academe have been the object of feminist scrutiny for years-well before the global outbreak of COVID-19.1 Noting the obvious "parallels with family life," critics long have observed that feminized faculty tend to take on, or to be tasked with, a disproportio…
"Labor in the Age of "Bio-Everything
Labor has been and continues to be an indispensable category of analysis for radical scholars, as evidenced by the proliferation of new terms-"affective" labor, "immaterial" labor, "digital" labor, and so forth-developed to describe the asymmetrical relations of capital and labor in and across contemporary settings. This essay traces the recent advent of the concept of "biological" or "clinical" labor, exploring (a) the utility of the concept for…
Removing Roots: "North American Hiroshima Maidens" and the X Ray
Removing Roots “North American Hiroshima Maidens” and the X Ray Rebecca Herzig (bio) On 25 February 1940, an officer with the San Francisco police department’s homicide detail reported a “rather suspicious business” operating in the city. At 126 Jackson Street sat an old, three-story rooming house, recently leased by Dr. Henri F. St. Pierre of the Dermic Laboratories. As Assistant Special Agent J. W. Williams later described the scene, “women had…
In the Name of Science: Suffering, Sacrifice, and the Formation of American Roentgenology
Accounts of early American experimentation with x-rays tend to linger over the ghastly wounds of scientific practice: ruptured blisters, cancerous limbs, and pus-ridden grafts. 1 Curiously, these descriptions of decaying flesh are joined by vigorous assertions of practitioners' unflagging devotion to science; scrupulous litanies of dismemberment and death glorify, rather than trouble, the quest for new knowledge. In place of cool-headed assessmen…
Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century
Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century by Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles
330 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE friends and partners in the promotion of the domestic chemical in dustry. After 1919, Garvan worked primarily through the Chemical Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established to administer con fiscated German patents. The foundation funneled money into re search and political lobbying to benefit chemical education and the domestic industry. In 1926, Herty left SOCMA to become a consul tant for the C…
Gendered Practices: Feminist Studies of Technology and Society
Reviewed by: Gendered Practices: Feminist Studies of Technology and Society* Rebecca Herzig (bio) Gendered Practices: Feminist Studies of Technology and Society. Edited by Boel Berner. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University; distributed by Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1997. Pp. 288; tables, notes. SKr 211. Like many contemporary feminist scholars, the eighteen contributors to Gendered Practices share a desire to “avoid simple certainties”…
Removing Roots: "North American Hiroshima Maidens" and the X Ray
Removing Roots “North American Hiroshima Maidens” and the X Ray Rebecca Herzig (bio) On 25 February 1940, an officer with the San Francisco police department’s homicide detail reported a “rather suspicious business” operating in the city. At 126 Jackson Street sat an old, three-story rooming house, recently leased by Dr. Henri F. St. Pierre of the Dermic Laboratories. As Assistant Special Agent J. W. Williams later described the scene, “women had…
The Woman Beneath the Hair: Treating Hypertrichosis, 1870-1930
Seeking to elucidate understandings of sexual difference held in past, this article examines emergence of one disease, hypertrichosis. Prior to 1930, hypertrichosis (excessive hairiness) was a disease defined, in part, by a confusion of sexed appearances. Diagnosing and treating this condition, then, necessitated some operative definition of sex, an index of normal against which to distinguish truly pathological. The standard of normal female ide…
Cleavage: Technology, Controversy, and the Ironies of the Man-Made Breast (review)
Glass balls, paraffin, olive oil, Teflon, silicon, nylon, Plexiglas--the stunning range of substances inserted into women's breasts over the past hundred years evokes the wide history of human innovation. For that reason alone, historians of technology will find much of interest in Nora Jacobson's thorough, detailed study of breast implants. A helpful addition to a growing literature on medical and cosmetic technologies, Jacobson's book confirms …
In the Name of Science: Suffering, Sacrifice, and the Formation of American Roentgenology
Accounts of early American experimentation with x-rays tend to linger over the ghastly wounds of scientific practice: ruptured blisters, cancerous limbs, and pus-ridden grafts. 1 Curiously, these descriptions of decaying flesh are joined by vigorous assertions of practitioners' unflagging devotion to science; scrupulous litanies of dismemberment and death glorify, rather than trouble, the quest for new knowledge. In place of cool-headed assessmen…
On Performance, Productivity, and Vocabularies of Motive in Recent Studies of Science
This essay addresses the increasing prominence of 'performance' as an analytical frame in recent studies of science. Building on the insights of existing feminist criticism, it identifies two largely unacknowledged features of such performance-oriented studies: first, an implicit recuperation of a pre-discursively real body; and second, a persistent emphasis on the productive character of performances. The essay considers the limitations of these…
Suffering For Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America
"The interpretation of "culture: Diverging perspectives on medical provision in rural Montana
Subjected to the Current: Batteries, Bodies, and the Early History of Electrification in the United States
“Subjected to the Current” charts the advent of electrolysis in nineteenth century America. Situating this technique of human hair removal within larger histories of electrification, the essay traces operators’ debates over the design of specific artifacts (needles, batteries, and so on) and the establishment of technical standards (for speed, current, etc.). Such technical developments, however, were but one feature of the technique: as early co…
The Political Economy of Choice: Genital Modification and the Global Cosmetic Services Industry
A Thing for Stories
Taking historian William Cronon's 1992 essay, "A Place for Stories," as its point of departure, this essay considers the character, purposes, and uses of narratives about "things" generated by self-identified historians of technology. Following Cronon, Herzig proposes closer scrutiny of narrative within SHOT, as part of a broader discussion of the changing roles and responsibilities of professional historians
"Labor in the Age of "Bio-Everything
Labor has been and continues to be an indispensable category of analysis for radical scholars, as evidenced by the proliferation of new terms-"affective" labor, "immaterial" labor, "digital" labor, and so forth-developed to describe the asymmetrical relations of capital and labor in and across contemporary settings. This essay traces the recent advent of the concept of "biological" or "clinical" labor, exploring (a) the utility of the concept for…
Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism
Bad Dog: Pit Bull Politics and Multispecies Justice
Housekeeping: Labor in the Pandemic University
Feminist Studies 47, no. 3. (c) 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 503 Rebecca Herzig and Banu Subramaniam Housekeeping: Labor in the Pandemic University The asymmetrical, uncompensated labors of academe have been the object of feminist scrutiny for years-well before the global outbreak of COVID-19.1 Noting the obvious "parallels with family life," critics long have observed that feminized faculty tend to take on, or to be tasked with, a disproportio…
Alma Mater
Placing the neoliberal academy's responses to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside Norman O. Brown's May 1960 Phi Beta Kappa speech, “Apocalypse: The Place of Mystery in the Life of the Mind,” this essay considers the place of madness, sacrifice, and monstrous motherhood in approaches to the university
Trigger Warning
Trigger warnings, statements alerting readers, listeners, or viewers to the presence of content that might revive distressing memories, have become a flash point in recent discussions about the US academy. Providing a genealogy of the concept and practice in US colleges and universities, this article situates the trigger warning's growing cultural prominence within twined changes in computer-mediated communication and legal understandings of embo…
Here We Go Again: On the Biological
In this short essay, Herzig and Subramaniam explore the potent role of “biological” sex/gender in contemporary politics. Considering some of the social movements, legislative actions, and affective investments mobilized around concepts of the biological, the essay first names some of feminist science and technology studies’ (FSTS) core contributions to understandings of biological sex/gender, then discusses how the field might be better positione…
Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Law (7 works) · History (5 works) · Medicine (5 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Social science (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)