About Rachel Maines

Full-length Curriculum vitae (PDF 180KB)

Contact Information

Department of Science & Technology Studies
Cornell University
726 University Avenue Room 311
Ithaca, NY 14853
607-254-3357
rpm24@cornell.edu

Home:
26 Dart Drive
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-257-2859
rmaines@twcny.rr.com

About Dr. Maines

Biography

I am a visiting scholar in the Cornell University Department of Science and Technology Studies. My principal research interests are in the history of technology, especially issues relating to technology and the body, including sexuality, medicine, technological risk, and injury epidemiology.

Principal publications:

• Hedonizing Technologies: Pathways to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure (working title), Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 2009.
• Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk, Rutgers University Press, 2005. For more about this book, click here.
• The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” Vibrators and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. For more about this book, click here.
• Published in Italian as Tecnologia dell’Orgasmo: Isteria, Vibratori e Soddisfazione Sessuale delle Donna (Venice: Marsilio, 2001)
• Published in part in Spanish in Debate Feminista (Mexico City: 2001).
• Film version: “Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm,” by Wabi Sabi Productions (Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori), premiered July 28, 2007 at Lincoln Center, New York City,.

Current Projects:

• Articles on sexuality and medicine in medieval Islam, and series of biographical articles on medieval translators of Islamic medical works into Latin and Hebrew, forthcoming in Medical Encyclopedia of Islam and Iran, Iran Academy of Medical Sciences, Teheran, 2008-2010 (in Persian and English).
• “Keeping Warm in the Armpits of the Empire: Roman Military Adaptations to Northern Climates,” (with Garrel Pottinger), accepted for presentation at the Society for the History of Technology annual meeting, Lisbon, October 2008.
• The Body Within: Textiles as Protection in War and Peace (working title), projected completion 2010 or 2011.