Sociologist Rosanna Hertz opens the lecture series ISDUB with a session on assisted reproductive technologies and new families
New families emerged from medical advances in assisted reproductive technologies are the main topic of the session that opens the International Sociological Debates Seminar de la UB (ISDUB) this year. First lecture, entitled “New Families in the Age of Reproductive Technologies: Donors, Donor Siblings and Single Mothers” takes place on Wednesday 23 October, at midday, at the Faculty of Economics and Business. It is pronounced by Professor Rosanna Hertz, from Wellesley College (United States), expert on family and gender issues. ISDUB, a forum addressed to the general public in which prestigious experts participate, considers Sociology as a fundamental subject area to understand society problems and solve the conflicts that these problems generate.
New families emerged from medical advances in assisted reproductive technologies are the main topic of the session that opens the International Sociological Debates Seminar de la UB (ISDUB) this year. First lecture, entitled “New Families in the Age of Reproductive Technologies: Donors, Donor Siblings and Single Mothers” takes place on Wednesday 23 October, at midday, at the Faculty of Economics and Business. It is pronounced by Professor Rosanna Hertz, from Wellesley College (United States), expert on family and gender issues. ISDUB, a forum addressed to the general public in which prestigious experts participate, considers Sociology as a fundamental subject area to understand society problems and solve the conflicts that these problems generate.
Rosanna Hertz is professor of Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies. She has focused her research on issues concerning family, work and gender. She has analysed how single women who have children balance work and motherhood; then, she centred her research on these womenʼs desire of motherhood, including aspects such as the role played by fathers or the future of these new families in American society. In 2006, she published the book Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women Are Choosing Parenthood without Marriage and Creating the New American Family (Oxford University Press). Currently, she studies those donor siblings who group themselves after finding each other on Internet. She analyses genetic interaction, social relations and cultural expectations. Elisabet Almeda, who heads the Department of Sociology and Organizational Analysis of the UB and the research group COPOLIS, is in charge of introducing Hertz.
ISDUB is a lecture series organised by six consolidated research groups on Sociology of the UB. This year, the Research Group on Urban Creativity, Innovation and Transformation (CRIT) coordinates the activity that includes six lectures. Each one will be presented and introduced by UB professors who collaborate with invited speakers.
The groups that collaborate in this initiative are: Welfare, Community and Social Control (COPOLIS); the Centre for the Study of Culture, Politics and Society (CECUPS); the Research Group on Power and Privilege (GEPP); Genre, Identity and Society (GIS); the Research Group on Creativity, Innovation and Urban Transformation (CRIT), and the Research Group on Territory, Population and Citizenship. ISDUB series is supported by the Catalan Association of Sociology and the Catalan Association of Political Scientists and Sociologists.