Marking Time: On the Anthropology of the Contemporary [Paperback]

Paul Rabinow (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0691133638 | ISBN-13: 978-0691133638 | Publication Date: October 29, 2007

In Marking Time, Paul Rabinow presents his most recent reflections on the anthropology of the contemporary. Drawing richly on the work of Michel Foucault, John Dewey, Niklas Luhmann, and, most interestingly, German painter Gerhard Richter, Rabinow offers a set of conceptual tools for scholars examining cutting-edge practices in the life sciences, security, new media and art practices, and other emergent phenomena. Taking up topics that include bioethics, anger and competition among molecular biologists, the lessons of the Drosophila genome, the nature of ethnographic observation in radically new settings, and the moral landscape shared by scientists and anthropologists, Rabinow shows how anthropology remains relevant to contemporary debates. By turning abstract philosophical problems into real-world explorations and offering original insights, Marking Time is a landmark contribution to the continuing re-invention of anthropology and the human sciences.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This essay is an intellectual pause in an active scholarly career. . . . Rabinow contemplates the automation of science and art, where art becomes nature and nature art. -- C.S. Peebles, Choice



[T]his book deserves a readership beyond anthropologists and scholars in science and technology studies. Read more generously, Rabinow's conversations with historians and philosophers (both ancient and modern), critics of art and literature, and artists and scientists could shed light on the problems of designing inquiry into the ethos and logos of any time. -- Natasha Myers, Isis

Review

Paul Rabinow has proved again that he is one of our most incisive commentators on the vital question of our time-what it means to be human today. The reflections gathered in this book engage with the question from a remarkable array of starting points-from speculative philosophical histories through the artisanship of painting to the creative labor that sequenced the genome of the fruit fly. In the process, he delineates a methodology for the anthropology of the contemporary that is productive and provocative in equal measure.
(Nikolas Rose, London School of Economics and Political Science ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (October 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691133638
• ISBN-13: 978-0691133638
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #795,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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