Free shipping on orders over $89 - Limited time only - T&Cs apply
Track My Order
Help Centre
Likes
My Wish ListsLogin / Join
Booktopia
Australia's local bookstore
Get Free Shipping on orders over $89
Impressionable Biologies : From the Archaeology of Plasticity to the Sociology of Epigenetics - Maurizio Meloni

Impressionable Biologies

From the Archaeology of Plasticity to the Sociology of Epigenetics

By: Maurizio Meloni

eText | 10 January 2019 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

eText

$96.79

or 4 interest-free payments of $24.20 with

 or 

Instant online reading in your Booktopia eTextbook Library *

Why choose an eTextbook?

Instant Access *

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

* eTextbooks are not downloadable to your eReader or an app and can be accessed via web browsers only. You must be connected to the internet and have no technical issues with your device or browser that could prevent the eTextbook from operating.

During the twentieth century, genes were considered the controlling force of life processes, and the transfer of DNA the definitive explanation for biological heredity. Such views shaped the politics of human heredity: in the eugenic era, controlling heredity meant intervening in the distribution of "good" and "bad" genes. However, since the turn of the twenty-first century, this centrality of genes has been challenged by a number of "postgenomic" disciplines. The rise of epigenetics in particular signals a shift from notions of biological fixedness to ideas of plasticity and "impressionability" of biological material.

This book investigates a long history of the beliefs about the plasticity of human biology, starting with ancient medicine, and analyses the biopolitical techniques required to govern such permeability. It looks at the emergence of the modern body of biomedicine as a necessary displacement or possibly reconfiguration of earlier plastic views. Finally, it analyses the returning of plasticity to contemporary postgenomic views and argues that postgenomic plasticity is neither a modernistic plasticity of instrumental management of the body nor a postmodernist celebration of potentialities. It is instead a plasticity that disrupts clear boundaries between openness and determination, individual and community, with important implications for notions of risk, responsibility and intervention.

on
Desktop
Tablet
Mobile

You Can Find This eBook In

Health, Relationships & Personal DevelopmentNon-FictionHistorySociology & AnthropologyAnthropologyMedicineMedicine in GeneralMedical SociologyScienceBiology, Life SciencesHuman BiologyMedical Anthropology
Society & CultureSocial Issues & ProcessesSocial Aspects of Illness & AddictionsPublic Health & Preventive MedicinePersonal & Public Health / Health EducationScience in GeneralHistory of ScienceSociologySocial TheoryKids & Children's BooksEducational MaterialCitizenship & Social Education Educational Material

Other Editions and Formats

Paperback

Published: 16th January 2019

View Product

More in Social Theory

Outsiders - Howard S. Becker

eBOOK

Outsiders

eBook

$13.99

This product is categorised by