Clare C. Jen
Dr. Clare Jen holds a joint appointment in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the Department of Biology at Denison University. She previously served as elected co-chair of the Science & Technology Taskforce of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), and as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Women’s Studies at University of Maryland-College Park.
The interdisciplinarity of her work is of relevance to women’s and gender studies, critical race and ethnic studies (specifically Asian American Studies), and feminist studies of science, technology, and health. Methodologically, she qualitatively analyzes visual and written texts—primarily news media, popular science and health media, and government and academic publications—as representational and constitutive of phenomena.
Besides teaching the introductory course and advising senior research in women’s and gender studies, she teaches feminist methodologies, feminist “practices” in the biological sciences, and feminist studies of science, technology and society. In the Department of Biology, she teaches an introductory biology course, with a weekly laboratory component, that couples and melds the epistemologies, methodologies, and methods of both disciplines.
Learning & Teaching
- BIO105/WGST254 Menstruation Studies: Biology, Health, and Justice
- BIOL110/WGST110 Biology and Politics of Women’s Health
- WGST110/QS290 Issues in Feminism
- WGST290 Feminist Science Studies
- WGST310 Feminist Research Methods
- WGST350/QS268 Feminist Health Politics
- WGST451/WGST452 Senior Research
- AC101 Advising Circle
Research
Works
Jen, Clare. [Updated for Third Edition] “Oppositional Scientific Praxis: The “Do” and “Doing” of #CRISPRbabies and DIY Hormone Biohacking.” Chapter in Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, Third Ed., eds. L. Ayu Saraswati, Barbara Shaw and Heather Rellihan, 465-470. Oxford University Press, Forthcoming.
Jen, Clare. “More than Cyborgs: Metaphors for Living, Surviving, and Gathering.” Chapter in Feminist Studies: Foundations, Conversations, Applications, eds. Hemangini Gupta, Kelly Sharron, Carly Thomsen, and Abraham Weil. Routledge, Forthcoming.
Jen, Clare. “Our Pandemic Conditions,” Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, No. 245 (Special Issue on Pandemics), ed. Danielle Wong, 20-26. University of British Columbia-Vancouver, November 2021.
Jen, Clare. “Oppositional Scientific Praxis: The “Do” and “Doing” of #CRISPRbabies and DIY Hormone Biohacking.” Chapter in Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, Second Ed., eds. L.Ayu Saraswati, Barbara Shaw and Heather Rellihan, 465-470. Oxford University Press, 2021.
Jen, Clare. “Feminist Hacktivisms: Countering Technophilia and Fictional Promises.” Chapter in Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, eds. L.Ayu Saraswati, Barbara Shaw and Heather Rellihan, 475-480. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Jen, Clare. “Do-It-Yourself Biology, Garage Biology, and Kitchen Science: A Feminist Analysis of Bio-Making Narratives.” Chapter in Knowing New Biotechnologies: Social Aspects of Technological Convergence, eds. Eugenia Rodrigues and Matthias Wienroth, 125-141. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Genomics Network Series. Routledge: New York, 2015.
Jen, Clare. “Feminist Technoscience Activism: A Double-Stranded Reading of Dr. Bodnar’s Ig Nobel Striptease.” Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, Issue 26 (2014): n. pag. Web. <.”>http://www.rhizomes.net/issue26/jen.html>.
Jen, Clare. “How to Survive Contagion, Disease and Disaster: ‘Masked Asian/American Woman’ as Low-Tech Specter of Emergency Preparedness.” Feminist Formations 25, no. 2 (2013): 107-128.
Jen, Clare. “The Possibilities of Asian American Citizenship: A Critical Race and Gender Analysis.” Ethnic Studies Review 34, nos. 1&2 (2011): 157-183.
Book Review
Jen, Clare. Book Review. Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity, by Banu Subramaniam. Asian Biotechnology Development Review 17, no. 1 (2015): 63-68.
Published Abstract
Yannoni, C., Gwira, J.A., Koelsch, E.M., Jen, C., Mederios, L.A., Wolfson, A.J., Kolodny, N.H. and Allen, M.M. 2001. “Comparison of the Effects of Nitrogen Repletion on the Cyanobacteria Synechocystis sp. Strains 308 and 6803.” Abstracts of the American Society for Microbiology 101st Meeting, 423.
Service
Editorial Board Member, Asian Journal of Women’s Studies (AJWS), 2023-26.
Advisory and Review Board Member for NSF-STS Grant #2146851, “Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Biological in Conversation with Basic Biology Textbooks through a Critical STS Lens,” May 2022-April 2025. PIs: Sara Giordano (Kennesaw State University) and Angela Willey (UMass Amherst).
National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA)
Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
The Association for Feminist Epistemologies, Methodologies,
Metaphysics and Science Studies (FEMMSS)
Other
Doctoral Graduate Award, American Association of University Women (AAUW)-College Park, MD, 2009.
Dissertation Fellowship, Consortium for Race, Gender and Ethnicity, University of Maryland College Park, 2007-2008.
Evie Beck Research Prize Award, Department of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland-College Park, 2006.
- Jisoo Kim, “An Intersectional Analysis of Emotional Display Rules in Interpersonal Settings: The Impact of Gender, Race, and Appearance” (Fall 2022, Spring 2023, WGST, Secondary Reader; Dr. Sarah Hutson-Comeaux as Primary Research Advisor)
- Joan Do-Truong, “Cultivating Remembrance, Resiliency and Reformation: A Call for an Asian American Feminist Studies Course to be Implemented at Denison University,” (Spring 2023, WGST, Co-Research Advisor with Dr. Min Ji Kang)
- Olivia Walters, “Interning at the Licking County Health Department: A Feminist Health Analysis” (Fall 2022, Spring 2023, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Becca Squier, “Approaches to Science and Health Literacy Through a Critical Race and Gender Lens” (Summer 2022, Summer Scholars, Laura C. Harris Summer Scholars, Primary Research Advisor)
- Diana Garcia Villagomez, “Reproductive Pains: Silence, Loss, and Hope” (Fall 2021, Spring 2022, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Anjana Chhetri, “I am not allowed to cook or practice religious or cultural activities’: The Study of Religious and Cultural Menstrual Practices through Feminist Lens” (Fall 2021, Spring 2022, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Abigail Lutz, “Gendered Upbringings: How College Students Recount Gendered Aspects of Childhood” (Fall 2021, Spring 2022, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Zoe Loitz, “Embodied Experiences and Analysis of Denison University Accessibility” (Fall 2020, Spring 2021, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Maddie McKenney-Lydick, “Beyond Accessibility: Utilizing Disability Pedagogy to Reimagine the Classroom” (Fall 2019, Spring 2020, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Jessica Leeds Richman, “Feminist Scientific and Medical Research Surrounding Women’s Chronic Pain and Illness” (Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Primary Research Advisor)
- Dana Phillips, “Resisting Respectability: Zines as Discursive Sites of Liberatory Queer Deviance” (Spring 2020 secondary reader, WGST; Dr. Hanne Blank as Primary Research Advisor)
- Samantha Cortez, “More Than Participants: Examining the Legislative Impact of Congresswomen from 1992 and 2012” (Spring 2019, WGST, Secondary Reader; Dr. Heather Poole as Primary Research Advisor)
- Kirsten Elmer, “Writing as Remedy: The Social and Political Connotations of the Female Body” (Fall 2016, Spring 2017, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Audrey Vasquez, “‘Making the Body’: An Analysis of Gendered Hormones,” (2016-17, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Isabel Tumminello, “The Sociology of Childbirth in the United States of America,” (2016-17, ANSO, secondary reader; Dr. Anita Waters as Primary Research Advisor)
- Rachel Auerbach, “Ecuadorian Women Rose Workers: A Feminist Analysis of Consent, Labor, and Chemical Exposure” (2015-16, WGST/ENVS, Primary Research Advisor)
- Shakia Asamoah, “Pinked Consciousness: The Ribbon Movement and Breast Cancer” (2013-14, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Loan Nguyen, “Strong Women, Small Businesses” (2013-14, WGST/ANSO, co-advised with Dr. Anita Waters)
- Gabriel Cunine, “The Pregnant Boy” (Spring 2014, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Marissa Lease, “Facebook vs. Fakebook: The Digital Formation of Teenage Girldom” (2012-13, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Elise Schultz, “Plant(hood) Matters: Epistemology of Plant Sex/Gender Dimorphism” (2011-12, WGST, co-advised with Dr. Andrew McCall)
- Eva Rediker, “Evolution and Sex: A Feminist Analysis of Behavior in the Animal Kingdom and its Social Construction in the Popular Press” (2011-12, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
- Saira Tekelenburg, “Exploring Beauty Paradoxes: How Age, Industry, and Science Shape the Ideal” (2012, WGST, Secondary Reader; Dr. Jill Gillespie as Primary Research Advisor)
- Donyea Moore, “The Science of ‘Good Skin’: A Feminist Analysis of ‘Beauty,’ Identity, and ‘Health’ in Biomedical and Popular Media Discourses” (Spring 2011, WGST, Primary Research Advisor)
