We cordially invite you to a public lecture by Prof. Daphna Joel, Professor of Psychology and Neurosciences, School of Psychological Sciences (Tel Aviv University). 

Title: Rethinking sex, brain, and gender: From binary to mosaic

The sex binary is not simply one of several competing theories regarding human brain and behavior within science. Rather, it is a taken-for-granted starting point that biases the scientific exploration of the relations between sex and brain and behavior. In the brain, data from animal studies challenge the binary framework and open a new way – the mosaic hypothesis – of thinking about ‘sex itself’ and its relations with brain and behavior. Applying varied analytical methods to the structure of over 5,000 human brains, we found that most brains comprise of unique ‘mosaics’ of both features that are more common in women and features that are more common in men; the brain architectures typical of women are also typical of men; and sex category provides little information on human brain structure. In other studies, we challenged the binary framework in relation to psychological characteristics, including gender identity and sexuality.

Daphna Joel is a professor of Neuroscience and Psychology, at the School of Psychological Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel-Aviv University. In the past decade she has been studying questions related to brain, sex and gender, using various analytical methods to analyze diverse datasets, from large collections of brain scans to information obtained with self-report questionnaires. In a series of papers, she described and tested the ‘mosaic’ hypothesis. Other studies focused on the perception of gender identity and its relation to sexuality. Ongoing studies attempt to characterize the relations between sex and brain structure and function. Joel has recently won an ERC advanced grant. She is also the author of Gender Mosaic: Beyond the Myth of the Male and Female Brain (2019, Little Brown, NY; DTV, Berlin). For more details and CV, please visit: https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/daphnajoel/ 

Information for public DLS Lecture
Thursday, 16th October
16:00–18:00
Location: room B1/B2 (Levi-Montalcini) at CBBM, 1st floor, Campus Lübeck 

Online-attendance via Webex: https://uni-luebeck.webex.com/uni-luebeck/j.php?MTID=mfbf4060baab4dd621cd4cd5ef6bbd72c

Information for DLS Seminar
Friday, 17th October
09:00–14:00 (presence)
Location: IMGWF Lecture Hall (Hörsaal) Königstr. 42, 23552 Lübeck