The Politics of Life Itself

by Rose, Nikolas

• ISBN13: 9780691121918
• ISBN10: 0691121915
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-30
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

For centuries, medicine aimed to treat abnormalities. But today normality itself is open to medical modification. Equipped with a new molecular understanding of bodies and minds, and new techniques for manipulating basic life processes at the level of molecules, cells, and genes, medicine now seeks to manage human vital processes.The Politics of Life Itselfoffers a much-needed examination of recent developments in the life sciences and biomedicine that have led to the widespread politicization of medicine, human life, and biotechnology. Avoiding the hype of popular science and the pessimism of most social science, Nikolas Rose analyzes contemporary molecular biopolitics, examining developments in genomics, neuroscience, pharmacology, and psychopharmacology and the ways they have affected racial politics, crime control, and psychiatry. Rose analyzes the transformation of biomedicine from the practice of healing to the government of life; the new emphasis on treating disease susceptibilities rather than disease; the shift in our understanding of the patient; the emergence of new forms of medical activism; the rise of biocapital; and the mutations in biopower. He concludes that these developments have profound consequences for who we think we are, and who we want to be.

Author Biography

Nikolas Rose is James Martin White Professor of Sociology and Director of the BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
List of Acronyms	xi
Introduction	1	(8)
Chapter 1 Biopolitics in the Twenty-First Century	9	(32)
Chapter 2 Politics and Life	41	(36)
Chapter 3 An Emergent Form of Life?	77	(29)
Chapter 4 At Genetic Risk	106	(25)
Chapter 5 Biological Citizens	131	(24)
Chapter 6 Race in the Age of Genomic Medicine	155	(32)
Chapter 7 Neurochemical Selves	187	(37)
Chapter 8 The Biology of Control	224	(28)
Afterward Somatic Ethics and the Spirit of Biocapital	252	(9)
Notes	261	(44)
Bibliography	305	(36)
Index	341