{"id":1040,"date":"2009-03-13T23:57:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T04:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/03\/13\/the-other-biocultural-studies\/"},"modified":"2009-03-13T23:57:19","modified_gmt":"2009-03-14T04:57:19","slug":"the-other-biocultural-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/03\/13\/the-other-biocultural-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"the other biocultural studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following from the last entry: I should have mentioned the other kind of biocultural studies that’s been getting more & more attention recently: see here,<\/a> here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The “Biocultures Manifesto<\/a>,” which appeared in New Literary History<\/em> back in 2007, seemed to suggest that it was time for all the work on embodiment, biopolitics (Foucauldian, Agambenian, etc.), and various efforts in science studies and cross-over areas of cognitive science to lead to something fairly radical, and ended with this series of bullet-point “provocative assaults” on received wisdom:<\/p>\n

* Science and humanities are incomplete without each other.<\/p>\n

* It is untrue that the humanities are the realm of values and the sciences the realm of facts.<\/p>\n

* Science isn’t hard and the humanities aren’t soft.<\/p>\n


\n* You can’t fully understand the results of a given data set without knowing the historical, social, cultural, discursive fields surrounding the data.<\/p>\n

* Any contemporary research needs more than a cursory background in history and in the history of the concepts it employs.<\/p>\n

* You can’t study a subject that is an object.<\/p>\n

* You can’t study an object that isn’t a subject.<\/p>\n

* Diseases are disease entities.<\/p>\n

* If you divide truths in half you get half-truths.<\/p>\n

* If you divide knowledge, your knowledge is divided.<\/p>\n

* Pain is always in your head because your brain is.<\/p>\n

* Nothing human is universal or atemporal.<\/p>\n

* Embodiment is necessarily biological, and knowledge is always embodied.<\/p>\n

* A fact is a socially produced conclusion.<\/p>\n

* Bodies are always cultural and biological.<\/p>\n

* Selves today are embodied, biologized, shaped by medical knowledge.<\/p>\n

* The body\u2014whose, what, when, where\u2014is always in question.<\/p>\n

* The boundary between organic and inorganic is no longer clear.<\/p>\n

* Technology has become human; humans have become technologies.<\/p>\n

* Patients and experimental subjects are part of the decision-making process.<\/p>\n

* Science can be postmodern; postmodernisms can be scientific.<\/p>\n

* Biology, as a science, cannot exist outside culture; culture, as a practice, cannot exist outside biology.”<\/p>\n

Provocative enough, I guess, but perhaps if they fail to send flames to the sky this might tell us a bit about the received wisdom they are assaulting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following from the last entry: I should have mentioned the other kind of biocultural studies that’s been getting more & more attention recently: see here, here, and here. The “Biocultures Manifesto,” which appeared in New Literary History back in 2007, seemed to suggest that it was time for all the work on embodiment, biopolitics (Foucauldian, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688977],"tags":[4441],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","tag-bioculturalism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-gM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1214,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/03\/12\/toward-a-post-constructivist-synthesis\/","url_meta":{"origin":1040,"position":0},"title":"toward a post-constructivist synthesis","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently mentioned my belief, or hope, that the humanities and sciences are working their ways toward a post-constructivist synthesis, a paradigm in the making with the potential to become a powerful player in twenty-first century public discourse. \"Post-constructivism\" says little, and \"post-representationalism\", \"post-anthropocentric humanism,\" and \"post-Kantianism\" -- the other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5128,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/08\/01\/environmental-humanities-the-challenge-of-multidisciplinarity\/","url_meta":{"origin":1040,"position":1},"title":"Environmental Humanities & the Challenge of Multidisciplinarity","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"CALL FOR PAPERS: Environmental Humanities and the Challenge of Multidisciplinarity A Workshop at the 13th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, \u201cThe Ethical Challenge of Multidisciplinarity: Reconciling \u2018The Three Narratives\u2019\u2014Art, Science, and Philosophy\u201d University of Cyprus, Nicosia July 2 \u2013 6, 2012 THEME OF\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6946,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/10\/14\/realism-peirce\/","url_meta":{"origin":1040,"position":2},"title":"Realism & Peirce","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Levi is out swinging (in the most entertaining way possible; I love it when he gets on a roll, and I do agree with him on much of it). Of course, there's not much new in what he says (that hasn't been said by Left-realists for the last few decades,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"File:ProperfrontPM.JPG","src":"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/d\/dd\/ProperfrontPM.JPG","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8051,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/04\/09\/33%e2%85%93-environmental-studies-greats-or-a-canon-revisited\/","url_meta":{"origin":1040,"position":3},"title":"33\u2153 Environmental Studies greats (or, a canon, revisited)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is a significantly revised version of an article I posted to the Indications\u00a0blog\u00a0(and\u00a0etc)\u00a0five and a half years ago. I was curious to see how much of it still holds (a lot, I think), so I've revisited it and expanded its proposed sort-of-canon, in the second part of what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Throbbing-Gristle-20-Jazz-Funk-Greats","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2015\/03\/Throbbing-Gristle-20-Jazz-Funk-Greats-275x275.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1090,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/18\/case-for-online-publishing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1040,"position":4},"title":"case for online publishing","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Mount Holyoke College political science professor Douglas Amy makes a good case for publishing online in this piece in today's Inside Higher Ed. Amy is the author of three previous books, The Politics of Environmental Mediation (Columbia University Press, 1987), Behind the Ballot Box (Greenwood, 2000), and Real Choices\/New Voices\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11559,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/01\/29\/eco-humanities-seminar\/","url_meta":{"origin":1040,"position":5},"title":"Eco-humanities seminar","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I will be making parts of my \"Advanced Environmental Humanities\" course open to the EcoCultureLab community and a limited broader public. Technical details remain to be worked out, but I'd like to make our readings and discussions open, so as to include interested participants from outside the university community. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}