Chloe Silverman
[homepage] [email] [Curriculum Vitae]
201B Old Botany
tel 814.865.2223 fax 814.865.3047

Background

Chloe Silverman received a Ph.D. in History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and then moved to Cornell University for a two-year Mellon postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Science & Technology Studies. Her dissertation examined the role of parent advocacy groups in research on autism spectrum disorders and the redefinition of the syndrome of autism in successive historical periods. She is finishing a manuscript, Autism, Love and Labor, which describes the shaping of the diagnostic and clinical entity of autism spectrum disorders in a series of historical and physical locations, including the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago, the early years of the National Society for Autistic Children, and contemporary parent advocacy groups devoted to promoting “biomedical interventions” for autism.

Her areas of interest include the history and social studies of biomedicine, focusing on neurodevelopmental disorders, diagnostic technologies, and patient advocacy and social movements. Much of her research focuses on the role of affect in the production of scientific knowledge, the way that claims about affect are used to establish authority, and the use of affect as an analytic tool and methodology in science studies. Silverman is also involved in several ongoing projects, including a collaborative study on the sociology of quantitative EEG technologies in studying neurodevelopmental disorders, a study on the use of laboratory tests in alternative medicine, and work on clinical trials in pediatric populations. She is beginning a project on the emergence and consequences of “spectrum” models of mental and developmental disorders.

Selected Publications

  • "Fieldwork on Another Planet: Social Science Perspectives on the Autism Spectrum," *BioSocieties, volume 3, issue 03 (2008): pp. 325-341. (c) Cambridge University Press. Available as a PDF PDF file or online: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=BIO&volumeId=3&issueId=03&iid=2201764
  • “Brains, Pedigrees and Promises: Lessons from the Politics of Autism Genetics,” in Gibbon, Sahra and Novas, Carlos, eds. Genetics and the Social Sciences: Making Biosociality. (London: Routledge, expected publication March 2007).
  • “Autism and Genetics.” (with Martha Herbert). 2003. GeneWatch Volume 16, number 1, January 2003.
  • “Molecular Stories.” 2001. Essay Review of Gottweis, H. 1998. Governing Molecules: the Discursive Politics of Genetic Engineering in Europe and the United States. Cambridge: MIT Press. In Science as Culture 10 (2).
  • “Desperate and Rational: Of Love, Biomedicine, and Experimental Community,” in Sunder Rajan, Kaushik ed. Lively Capital: Biotechnology, Ethics and Governance in Global Markets. (Under Review at Duke University Press).

Teaching Interests

History and sociology of biomedicine, history of psychiatry and neurological disorders, biotechnologies, and the life sciences, disability studies, history of mental illness, sociological perspectives on bioethics, health-based social movements and environmental health, sociology of knowledge; photographic imagery in science; gender studies.

Courses

STS 497e: Medicine, Normality and Disability