CNU Library Blog - LibGuides at California Northstate University

Title: The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist.

Author: Ben Barres (Author), Nancy Hopkins (Foreword).

Publication info: The MIT Press, 2020. Autobiography, 160 pages.

Location: Rancho Cordova campus. Call number: QP353.4.B37 A3 2018.

Description: "A leading neuroscientist describes his life, gender transition, groundbreaking scientific work on glial cells, and his advocacy for gender equality in STEM. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and advocacy for gender equality in science. In this autobiography, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his gender confusion and later transition in his 40s, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers's speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. 'The most rewarding part of his job,' however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy."

Title: Graphic Medicine Manifesto.

Published: 2015.

Available: as an eBook in Academic eBook Collection.

Description: "This inaugural volume in the graphic medicine series establishes the principles of graphic medicine and begins to map the field. The volume combines scholarly essays by members of the editorial team with previously unpublished visual narratives by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, and it includes arresting visual work from a wide range of graphic medicine practitioners. The book's first section, featuring essays by Scott Smith and Susan Squier, argues that as a new area of scholarship, research on graphic medicine has the potential to challenge the conventional boundaries of academic disciplines, raise questions about their foundations, and reinvigorate literary scholarship—and the notion of the literary text—for a broader audience. The second section, incorporating essays by Michael Green and Kimberly Myers, demonstrates that graphic medicine narratives can engage members of the health professions with literary and visual representations and symbolic practices that offer patients, family members, physicians, and other caregivers new ways to experience and work with the complex challenges of the medical experience. The final section, by Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec, focuses on the practice of creating graphic narratives, iconography, drawing as a social practice, and the nature of comics as visual rhetoric. A conclusion (in comics form) testifies to the diverse and growing graphic medicine community. Two valuable bibliographies guide readers to comics and scholarly works relevant to the field."

Article-linking websites online can help you find relevant articles from one article's DOI. Scroll through these slides to learn more about LitMaps, Citation Gecko, and Connected Papers.

Academic research is an ongoing conversation between authors. by Sadie Davenport

Published in: 2022. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Available: As an eBook in our Academic eBook Collection.

Description: "The focus of bioethical debates on exceptional cases neglects the underlying values—like justice and community—that would lend to a broader, more well-rounded understanding of today's world.Discussions of ethical problems in health care too often concentrate on exceptional cases. Bioethical controversies triggered by experimental drugs, gene-edited babies, or life extension are understandably fascinating: they showcase the power of medical science and technology while addressing anxieties concerning health, disease, suffering, and death. However, the focus on rare individual cases in the media spotlight turns attention away from more pressing ethical issues that impact global populations, such as access to health care, safe food and water, and the prevention of emerging infectious diseases. In Bizarre Bioethics, Henk A.M.J. ten Have argues that this focus on bizarre cases leads to bizarre bioethics with a narrow agenda for ethical debate. In other words, although these extreme cases are undeniably real, they present a limited and skewed view of everyday moral reality. This focus also assumes that individuals are rational decision-makers, so that the role of feelings and emotions can be downgraded. Larger questions related to justice, solidarity, community, meaning, and ambiguity are not appreciated. Such questions used to be posed by philosophical and theological traditions, but they have been exorcised and marginalized in the development of bioethics. Science, ten Have writes, is not a value-free endeavor that provides facts and evidence: it is driven by underlying value perspectives that are often based on metaphors and world views from philosophical and theological traditions. Drawing on a rich analysis of the literature, ten Have explains how bioethical discussion can be enriched by these metaphors and develops a broader approach that critically delves into the imaginative world views that determine understanding of the world and human existence. Examining the roles of the metaphors of ghosts, monsters, pilgrims, prophets, and relics, ten Have illustrates how science and medicine are animated by imaginations that fuel the search for hope, salvation, healing, and a predictable future. Bizarre Bioethics invites students, researchers, policymakers and teachers interested in ethics and health care to think about the value perspectives on health and disease today."

The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist, by Ben Barres

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