Biosocial Matters: Rethinking the Sociology-Biology Relations in the Twenty-First Century features a collection of readings from scholars on the vanguard of a reframing of biology/society debates within the sociological disciplines.
* Brings together voices who are contributing to a reframing of the biology/sociology debate within sociology and sister disciplines such as anthropology, history, and philosophy
* Gathers theoretical and historically-oriented contributions to gain an understanding of the current renegotiation of the biological/social boundaries
* Presents in-depth analyses of two frontiers of ongoing biology/sociology debates: epigenetics and neuroscience
* Reveals how a new biosocial terrain can revitalize both sociology and the biological imagination
Editorial introduction
1. The biosocial: sociological themes and issues (Maurizio Meloni, Simon Williams and Paul Martin)
Rise of the new biology: implications for the social sciences
2. Thinking about biology and culture: can the natural and human sciences be integrated? (Evelyn Fox Keller)
3. Cultural epigenetics (Eva Jablonka)
4. From boundary-work to boundary object: how biology left and re-entered the social sciences (Maurizio Meloni)
5. The social as signal in the body of chromatin (Hannah Landecker)
Thinking biosocially: promises, problems, prospects
6. Unstable bodies: biosocial perspectives on human variation (Gisli Palsson)
7. The turn to biology (Tim Newton)
8. Organizing the organism: a re-casting of the bio-social interface for our times (Steve Fuller)
9. New bottles for new wine: Julian Huxley, biology and sociology in Britain (Chris Renwick)
Biosocial challenges and opportunities: epigenetics and neuroscience
10. Social epigenetics: a science of social science? (Emma Chung, John Cromby, Dimitris Papadopoulos and Cristina Tufarelli)
11. Epistemic modesty, ostentatiousness and the uncertainties of epigenetics: on the knowledge machinery of (social) science (Martyn Pickersgill)
12. The epigenomic self in personalized medicine: between responsibility and empowerment (Luca Chiapperino and Giuseppe Testa)
13. Living well in the Neuropolis (Des Fitzgerald, Nikolas Rose and Ilina Singh)
14. The nature of structure: a biosocial approach (John Bone)
15. The challenges of new biopsychosocialities: hearing voices, trauma, epigenetics and mediated perception (Lisa Blackman)
Notes on contributors
Index
Maurizio Meloni is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author of the upcoming book Political Biology (2016) and has held two EU Marie Curie Fellowships, a Fulbright scholarship, and an Annual Membership (2014-2015) at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science, Princeton, NJ USA
Simon Williams is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. His publications include a co-edited collection Debating Biology (2003), and contributions to many other journals such as Body & Society, Sociology, Subjectivities, Sociology of Health & Illness and Social Science and Medicine.
Paul Martin is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sheffield, and former Director of the Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham. He has published in journals such as BioSocieties, New Genetics and Society, Sociology of Health and Illness, and Social Science and Medicine.