Some writers have celebrated a new biological
citizenship arising from individuals' unprecedented ability to manage
their health at the molecular level. In this year’s Helen Pond McIntyre
'48 lecture, Dorothy Roberts examines the role of race and gender in the
construction of this new biocitizen in light of the current expansion of
race-based, reproductive, and genetic biotechnologies along with
neoliberal reliance on private resources for people's welfare. Roberts
argues that science, big business, and politics are converging to
support a molecularized understanding of race, health, and citizenship
that ultimately helps to preserve inequities. An internationally
recognized scholar, public intellectual, and social justice advocate,
Dorothy Roberts has written and lectured extensively on the interplay of gender,
race, and class in legal issues and has been a leader in transforming
public thinking and policy on reproductive health, child welfare, and
bioethics. She is the Penn Integrates Knowledge/George A. Weiss
University Professor, the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell
Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, and Professor of Sociology at
University of Pennsylvania.