A World Divided into Sheep & Goats: The Scientific Practice of Taxonomy and the Construction of Private Identity

Watson B.M.

Based on work done for a book tentatively titled The Kinseys & the Myth of the Sexual Revolution, this talk presents the results of an investigation into the Kinseys (the man and the Institute) in order to examine the profound influence of taxonomy and knowledge organization on the shaping of people’s most private interiorities: gender, sexuality, and personal identity.

SPEAKER PROFILE

B.M. Watson is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University focusing on the (multiple) histories of information and how cultural heritage institutions like libraries, archives, and museums relate to marginalized communities through the practice of equitable cataloguing and knowledge work. Watson was one of UBC Library’s inaugural EDI Scholars-in-Residence, a recipient of a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and a fellowship from the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics. They are a two-time awardee of the Public Scholar Initiative and the Nancy DeLaurier Award from the Visual Resources Association.