Ryan C. Welsh
UNCC Graduate Research Fair 2/26/11
“Brave New Worlds of Pedagogical Possibilities in Theory and Practice”
Quotes worth presenting…
“fertility is merely a nuisance…So we allow as many as thirty per cent of the female
embryos to develop normally. The others get a dose of the male sex-hormone every
twenty-four metres for the rest of the course…Which brings us at last out of the realm of
mere slavish imitation of nature into the much more interesting world of human
invention” (Huxley, 13).
“that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you’ve got to do. All
conditioning aims at that: making people like their un-escapable social destiny” (Huxley,
16).
“The girl turned with a start. One could see that, for all the lupus and the purple eyes, she
was uncommonly pretty.
‘Henry!’ Her smile flashed redly at him—a row of coral teeth.
‘Charming, charming,’ murmured the Director and, giving her two or three little pats,
received in exchange a rather deferential smile for himself…
‘Charming,’ said the Director once more, and, with a final pat, moved away after the
others” (Huxley, 16-17).
“These biological considerations are extremely important. In the history of woman they
play a part of the first rank and constitute an essential element in her situation.
Throughout our further discussion we shall always bear them in mind. For, the body
being the instrument of our grasp upon the world, the world is bound to seem a very
different thing when apprehended in one manner or another…But I deny that they
establish for her a fixed and inevitable destiny. They are insufficient for setting up a
hierarchy of the sexes; they fail to explain why woman is the Other; they do not condemn
her to remain in this subordinate role forever” (Beauvoir, 32-33).
“Certainly these facts cannot be denied—but in themselves they have no significance.
Once we adopt the human perspective, interpreting the body on a basis of existence,
biology becomes an abstract science; whenever the physiological fact…takes on
meaning, this meaning is at once seen as dependent on a whole context” (Beauvoir, 34).
“Thus we must view the facts of biology in the light of an ontological, economic, social,
and psychological context. The enslavement of the female to the species and the
limitations of her various powers are extremely important facts; the body of woman is
one of the essential elements of her situation in the world. But that body is not enough to
define her as woman; there is no true living reality except as manifested by the conscious
individual through activities and in the bosom of a society” (Beauvoir, 36-37).
Works Cited
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. 1949. New York, NY: Bantom Books, 1970.
Print.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1998. Print.