Precious Material
Over the past decade, the Canadian university-based Epigenetics Lab has become increasingly central to the production of knowledge about human health and development.[1] During my first visit there, Daniel, one of three technicians in the lab, is visibly stressed. He apologizes for not being more relaxed. He has been up all night worried about a shipment of …
I went to a Science and Technology Studies (STS) conference in Melbourne recently and listened to a panel of social scientists share their work about psychological disorders. There was no doubt I had stakes in being there; I study embodiment and trauma and so I knew what I was hoping to hear. I sat, in anticipation, waiting to hear about …
The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, and Knowledge after the Genome
University of Chicago Press, 2017, 304 pages.
Genetics: A Situated View
How enduring is the love affair between our societies and genetics (today genomics)? And what is the role of critical social science in undermining or, rather, mirroring the power of this romance? And what do we …
This contemporary moment begs the question: what is a fact? And how do facts circulate? These questions are historical cornerstones in the study of the production of knowledge, and scaffold work in disciplines from philosophy to anthropology; however, in a post-truth climate asking after the genesis and dissemination of facts takes on a new and curious significance. The production and …
Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thought styles and thought collectives – translations and receptions
March 10th – 11th 2016
Wrocław, Poland
…Organizing committee: Paweł Jarnicki (Project Science Foundation and Ludwik Fleck Centre at Collegium Helveticum); Martina Schlünder (Ludwik Fleck Circle and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science); Ohad Parnes (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science);
Prologue: Pope Francis and Zhang Taiyan 章太炎
On 16 June 2015, Pope Francis published Laudato Si’ (Be Praised), an encyclical letter on climate change tellingly subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.” The encyclical links the destruction of the environment with the exploitation of the poor, and it unambiguously roots both in capitalism’s pernicious gluttony [10]. In the Pope’s analysis, …