New pharmacological therapies, often dubbed `lifestyle drugs', demonstrate the enactment of yet another interface between technologies and bodies that promises a re-fashioning of the body with transformative, life-enhancing results. This article analyzes the emergence of one lifestyle drug, Viagra, from a technoscience studies perspective, conceptualizing Viagra as a new medical technology of the body. Through an analysis of promotional materials for Viagra, we argue that this pharmaceutical device performs ideological work through its discursive scripts that serves to reinforce and augment (...) dominant cultural narratives in relation to material bodies, particularly those of hegemonic masculinity and male (and female) sexuality. We conclude that Viagra carries the potential to reify and reinforce these dominant and hegemonic narratives, while at the same time, through ensuring an open market for heterogeneous users, it provides spaces for alternatives to these normative ideals and assumptions. (shrink)

Background: The rapid spread of COVID-19 infection has led countries across the globe to take various measures to contain the outbreak, including the closure of Universities. Forcing University students to stay at home has created enormous stress and uncertainty in their daily life.Objective: This study aimed to assess the perceived stress and coping strategies among undergraduate health science students of Jimma University amid the COVID-19 outbreak.Materials and methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted involving 337 undergraduate health science students from (...) August to September 5, 2020. The perceived stress scale -10 and Brief-COPE scale were used to assess the level of stress and coping strategies, respectively. Statistical Package for Social Science Version 22 was employed for data analysis. Logistic regression was conducted to identify predictors of high perceived stress.Results: The overall mean [±standard deviation ] age of the participants was 22.88 years. The mean PSS score was 22.16, and high perceived stress was reported in 121 participants. The overall mean coping score was 72.34, and approach coping was the predominantly used strategy for coping with stress. Personal perception of being stressed by the daily number of COVID-19 cases/deaths in Ethiopia, rare online talk/chat with friends, presence of confusion due to the inconsistent strategies developed by the health/government authorities in view of the scientific recommendations, perception of self/family members being at risk of getting sick, decreased household income following the COVID-19 pandemic, practicing denial, self-blame, planning, and religion as means of coping with stress were associated with high perceived stress.Conclusion: Over one-third of the participants had a high level of perceived stress, and the majority of them were practicing effective means of coping with stress. The authors recommend that the hosting University in collaboration with the concerned bodies develop innovative strategies to improve the psychological well-being of the students. (shrink)

A sociologist examines contemporary engagements of queer bodies and identities with fertility biomedicine. Drawing on social science, media culture, and the author’s own empirical research, three questions frame the analysis: 1. In what ways have queers on the gendered margins moved into the center and become implicated or central users of biomedicine’s fertility offerings? 2. In what ways is Fertility Inc. transformed by its own incorporation of various gendered and queered bodies and identities? And 3. What are the biosocial and (...) bioethical implications of expanded queer engagements and possibilities with Fertility Inc.? The author argues that “patient” activism through web 2.0 coupled with a largely unregulated free-market of assisted reproduction has included various queer identities as “parents-in-waiting.” Such inclusions raise a set of ethical tensions regarding how to be accountable to the many people implicated in this supply and demand industry. (shrink)

This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values assembles papers that consider relations among science, ethics, and justice. The papers are drawn from a 2011 National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop that brought together interdisciplinary scholars to consider, incorporate, and attend to the meanings, uses, and social consequences of ethical questions and justice ideals in technoscientific projects. The papers included in this special issue examine key areas that emerged from this workshop, including public participation, the production of knowledge, what counts as (...) consent, ownership of biomaterials, and others. Together, the papers raise questions about new directions and articulations of power, justice, and inequalities in science and technology studies. (shrink)

Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty-six lesbians, this article offers a feminist qualitative analysis of lesbian conception practices. The article examines the ways lesbian actors negotiate biomedical discourse in ways that reveal the co-constitutiveness of nature and culture, bodies and technologies, and biomedical and subjective knowledge. The article offers the concept of hybrid technologies, which are described as lesbian pragmatic negotiations of shifting control loci of technoscience. The author argues that lesbians' pathways to pregnancy are characterized by a negotiation of (...) discursive elements from alternative health discourses and biomedical knowledge, of various forms of technology, and of what is often termed the authoritative, objective, and scientific with the subjugated, subjective, and the embodied. In doing so these actors complicate through multiple agencies what is often interpreted as a totalizing force of biomedicalization. (shrink)

Cuand o l a edició n d e est e númer o d e lo s Anale s d e l a Cáted r a F r ancisc o Suá r e z estab a a punt o d e ce r rars e no s so r prendi ó e l f allecimient o d e fo r m a repentina e inesperad a d e Nicolá s Lópe z Calera , Directo r d e est a pu b (...) licació n durant e más d e cuarent a años . P ar a tod o e l equip o editoria l qu e fo r mamo s pa r t e d e lo s A CFS s u mue r t e h a signi f icad o un a pérdid a i r repara b l e po r l a huell a imbo r ra b l e qu e su labo r académic a y dedicació n un i v ersitari a h a dejad o entr e todo s nosotros. (shrink)

Cuand o l a edició n d e est e númer o d e lo s Anale s d e l a Cáted r a F r ancisc o Suá r ez estab a a punt o d e ce r rars e no s so r prendi ó e l f allecimient o d e fo r m a repentin a e inesperad a d e Nicolá s Lópe z Calera , Directo r d e est a pu b (...) licació n durant e má s de cuarent a años . P ar a e l equip o editoria l qu e fo r mamo s pa r t e d e lo s A CF S s u mue r te h a significad o un a pérdid a i r repara b l e po r l a huell a imbo r ra b l e qu e s u labo r aca- démic a y dedicació n un i v ersitari a h a dejad o entr e nosotros . Est e númer o adquiere u n significad o especia l po r qu e e l aza r quis o qu e e l Prof . Lópe z Caler a no s e n viase par a s u pu b licació n e n l a secció n abie r t a e l últim o trabaj o qu e habí a te r minado a f inale s de l pasad o v erano , un a i n v estigació n sobr e “Guille r m o d e Ockha m y el laicism o mode r no” . T ra s s u f allecimiento , e l Consej o d e Redacció n consider ó más apropiad o pu b lica r dich o trabaj o com o l o qu e s u mue r t e l o habí a acabad o con- vi r tiendo : u n document o póstumo . U n document o ademá s especialment e emot iv o par a todo s lo s qu e l o conocimo s y trabajamo s co n él . E n l a secció n habitua l d e la r e vist a podr á disf r uta r e l lecto r d e est e trabaj o de l Prof . Lópe z Caler a e n e l que v olví a a mostra r un a d e su s pasione s intelectuale s preferida s com o er a l a lectur a y l a constant e vuelt a a l pensamient o d e lo s clásico s desd e lo s qu e afronta r lo s temas má s contemporáneos. (shrink)