Reordering Life

How the regimes governing biological research changed during the genomics revolution, focusing on the Human Genome Project. The rise of genomics engendered intense struggle over the control of knowledge. In Reordering Life, Stephen Hilgartner examines the “genomics revolution” and develops a novel approach to studying the dynamics of change in knowledge and control. Hilgartner focuses on the Human Genome Project (HGP)—the symbolic and scientific centerpiece of the emerging field—showing how problems of governance arose in concert with new knowledge and technology. Using a theoretical framework that analyzes “knowledge control regimes,” Hilgartner investigates change in how control was secured, contested, allocated, resisted, justified, and reshaped as biological knowledge was transformed. Beyond illuminating genomics, Reordering Life sheds new light on broader issues about secrecy and openness in science, data access and ownership, and the politics of research communities. Drawing on real-time interviews and observations made during the HGP, Reordering Life describes the sociotechnical challenges and contentious issues that the genomics community faced throughout the project. Hilgartner analyzes how laboratories control access to data, biomaterials, plans, preliminary results, and rumors; compares conflicting visions of how to impose coordinating mechanisms; examines the repeated destabilization and restabilization of the regimes governing genome databases; and examines the fierce competition between the publicly funded HGP and the private company Celera Genomics. The result is at once a path-breaking study of a self-consciously revolutionary science, and a provocative analysis of how knowledge and control are reconfigured during transformative scientific change.

Theoretically innovative and empirically wide-ranging, this book examines the complex relations between technoscience and everyday life. It draws on numerous examples, including both mundane technologies such as Velcro, Post-it notes, mobile phones and surveillance cameras, and the esoterica of xenotransplantation, new genetics, nanotechnology and posthuman society. Technoscience and Everyday Life traces the multiple ways in which technoscience features in and affects the dynamics of everyday life, and explores how the everyday influences the course of technoscience. In the process, it takes account of a range of core social scientific themes: body, identity, citizenship, society, space, and time. It combines critique and microsocial analysis to develop several novel conceptual tools, and addresses key contemporary theoretical debates on posthumanism, social-material divides, process philosophy and complexity, temporality and spatiality. The book is a major contribution to the sociology of everyday life, science and technology studies, and social theory.

Our lives are full of disruptions, from the minor—a flat tire, an unexpected phone call—to the fateful—a diagnosis of infertility, an illness, the death of a loved one. In the first book to examine disruption in American life from a cultural rather than a psychological perspective, Gay Becker follows hundreds of people to find out what they do after something unexpected occurs. Starting with bodily distress, she shows how individuals recount experiences of disruption metaphorically, drawing on important cultural themes to help them reestablish order and continuity in their lives. Through vivid and poignant stories of people from different walks of life who experience different types of disruptions, Becker examines how people rework their ideas about themselves and their worlds, from the meaning of disruption to the meaning of life itself. Becker maintains that to understand disruption, we must also understand cultural definitions of normalcy. She questions what is normal for a family, for health, for womanhood and manhood, and for growing older. In the United States, where life is expected to be orderly and predictable, disruptions are particularly unsettling, she contends. And, while continuity in life is an illusion, it is an effective one because it organizes people's plans and expectations. Becker's phenomenological approach yields a rich, compelling, and entirely original narrative. Disrupted Lives acknowledges the central place of discontinuity in our existence at the same time as it breaks new ground in understanding the cultural dynamics that underpin life in the United States. FROM THE BOOK:"The doctor was blunt. He does not mince words. He did a [semen] analysis and he came back and said, 'This is devastatingly poor.' I didn't expect to hear that. It had never occurred to me. It was such a shock to my sense of self and to all these preconceptions of my manliness and virility and all of that. That was a very, very devastating moment and I was dumbfounded. . . . In that moment it totally changed the way that I thought of myself."

Everyday worship practices—from praying the rosary to moments of recognizing the beauty of God's creation, from being moved by the power of music to praying Vespers on an iPad—not only take place at different locations and during different days of the week but also dynamically interact with one another. The Liturgy of Life examines the interrelationship between the practice of Sunday Eucharist and the many nonofficial worship practices that mark the everyday lives of Christians who continually negotiate the boundaries of official teaching on liturgy. Drawing on the writings of theologians and sociologists of lived religion and data from an ethnographic research project, this timely work stretches the contextual horizon of liturgical scholarship and presents a provocative and dynamic paradigm of Christian worship for the twenty-first century.

This volume creates a multi-disciplinary dialogue about clinician-patient communication. It offers a description of the relevance of culture as a contextual effect that impacts the clinician-patient relationship. Some topics addressed include: oncology care, quality of life issues, supportive survivorship, etc. It is for physicians, nurses, hospice and palliative care professionals and public health professionals.

Historically, angels have been viewed as either disconnected objects of speculative investigation, or as mystifying beings mysteriously influencing our lives. However, this is not how the Bible describes them. Scripture, in sober and straightforwardterms, simply describes what angels do. It is a practical depiction, a pastoral presentation. We see messages of encouragement, revelation, and guidance; we see judgment and correction; we see strengthening; we see journeying; we see prayer and worship. The biblical focus concerning angels is on ministry to the people of God. Angels are one way that God intervenes in human affairs in response to pastoral concerns or problems. Created to minister, angels are best understood, not using speculative or detached theology, but through applied and pastoral lenses. Using only Scripture and a classic model of pastoral theology as the framework, this book shows practically how angels are employed by God to bless his church and people as his servant ministers who glorify him alone.

Not long ago, a cancer diagnosis was regarded as an automatic death sentence; today there are ten million survivors. Equally impressive is the growing number of clinicians and researchers dedicated to improving the quality of survivors’ lives and care. Yet despite this encouraging picture, there has never been a reliable central source for relevant clinical information — until now. This book, written by a cancer survivor and sixty other top scientist-practitioners, responds to the diverse needs of survivors and their support communities by comprehensively addressing the major issues in the field, from the burden of survivorship to secondary prevention.

Depression is frequently associated with other psychiatric disorders and is often related to chronic health problems. Depressive symptoms are also common in chronically distressed close relationships and severe interpersonal difficulties in families and at work. The topic of depressive comorbidity is clearly very important, and while recent research in this area has been methodologically sophisticated, well presented, and inherently interesting, there has not been a comprehensive, academic resource that covers recent developments in this area. The Oxford Handbook of Depression and Comorbidity brings together scholarly contributions from world-class researchers to present a careful and empirically based review of depressive comorbidity. Cutting-edge chapters address theory, research, and practice, while capturing the diversity, evidence-base, and importance of depressive comorbidity. Specific topics include the comorbidity between depression and PTSD, alcohol use, and eating, anxiety, panic, bipolar, personality, and sleep disorders, as well as schizophrenia, suicide, cardiovascular disease, cancer, pain, obesity, intimate relationships, and many more. The Oxford Handbook of Depression and Comorbidity is a unique and much-needed resource that will be helpful to a broad range of researchers and practitioners including clinical and counseling psychologists, psychiatrists, marital and family therapists, social workers, and counselors working in mental-health and general health-care settings, as well as students in these areas.