Adam, Beck, van Loon (eds.): The Risk Society and Beyond. Critical Issues for Social Theory (2000)

Ulrich Beck’s best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck’s ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely throughout social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck.

Editors Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck, Joost van Loon
Publisher SAGE, 2000
ISBN 076196469X, 9780761964698
232 pages

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PDF (updated on 2013-6-5)

Luciana Parisi: Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire (2004)

“Astract Sex investigates the impact of advances in contemporary science and information technology on conceptions of sex. Evolutionary theory and the technologies of viral information transfer, cloning and genetic engineering are changing the way we think about human sex, reproduction and the communication of genetic information. Abstract Sex presents a philosophical exploration of this new world of sexual, informatic and capitalist multiplicity, of the accelerated mutation of nature and culture.”

Publisher Continuum, 2004
ISBN 0826469906, 9780826469908
227 pages

Interview with author (Matthew Fuller, 2004).
Reviews: Andrew Goffey (Mute 2003), Stella Sandford (Radical Phil 2004), Paul Hegarty (n.d.).

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Paul Rabinow: Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment (2003)

The discipline of anthropology is, at its best, characterized by turbulence, self-examination, and inventiveness. In recent decades, new thinking and practice within the field has certainly reflected this pattern, as shown for example by numerous fruitful ventures into the “politics and poetics” of anthropology. Surprisingly little attention, however, has been given to the simple insight that anthropology is composed of claims, whether tacit or explicit, about anthropos and about logos–and the myriad ways in which these two Greek nouns have been, might be, and should be, connected. Anthropos Today represents a pathbreaking effort to fill this gap.

Paul Rabinow brings together years of distinguished work in this magisterial volume that seeks to reinvigorate the human sciences. Specifically, he assembles a set of conceptual tools–“modern equipment”–to assess how intellectual work is currently conducted and how it might change.

Anthropos Today crystallizes Rabinow’s previous ethnographic inquiries into the production of truth about life in the world of biotechnology and genome mapping (and his invention of new ways of practicing this pursuit), and his findings on how new practices of life, labor, and language have emerged and been institutionalized. Here, Rabinow steps back from empirical research in order to reflect on the conceptual and ethical resources available today to conduct such inquiries.

Drawing richly on Foucault and many other thinkers including Weber and Dewey, Rabinow concludes that a “contingent practice” must be developed that focuses on “events of problematization.” Brilliantly synthesizing insights from American, French, and German traditions, he offers a lucid, deeply learned, original discussion of how one might best think about anthropos today.

Publisher Princeton University Press, 2003
ISBN 0691115664, 9780691115665
159 pages

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PDF (updated on 2012-10-29)