Review of: Nicole C. Karafyllis, Gotling Ulshöfer: Sexualized Brains. Cambridge u.a.: MIT Press 2008

Abstract

Modern brain research plays a powerful and by now cross-disciplinary role in the debates on gender normalization. Nicole Karafylis and Gotlind Ulshöfer present the field of discourse from diverse perspectives, including contributions from neuroscience, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and philosophy. They question whether Emotional Intelligence (EI) as a desirable ability can deconstruct the classic encoding of masculine rationality and feminine emotionality and can therefore have emancipatory potential by opposing the hierarchy of society. The authors uncover and define many aspects such as connections between strands of discourses, mutual influences, and the limits of disciplines. These aspects show that the dialogue begun here must be critically continued.