for those who were not at the HSS meetings this year, the awards are
now up on the HSS webpage. Notable for us is the prize in the
History of the Life Sciences and Natural History
Suzanne J. Levinson Prize: Hannah Landecker
It is with great pleasure that the committee awards the Suzanne J.
Levinson Prize for the best book in the life sciences and natural
history to Hannah Landecker for Culturing Life: How Cells Became
Technologies (Harvard University Press, 2007).
Landecker’s book is an interdisciplinary synthesis featuring the
history of cell and tissue culture, but also uses fresh
anthropological and philosophical perspectives to show the
redefinition of what it means to be a biological entity. The practice
of contemporary biological science continues to redefine such central
terms as hybridity, individuality, and immortality. The manipulation
of cells outside the organism is leading biologists to surprising
conclusions linking biological technology and philosophical and
ethical understandings of what it means to be alive, to be human and
to be of value.
Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies is a worthy winner of
the Suzanne J. Levinson Prize and we feel sure this book will be
recognized as a creative work that moves the disciplines of the
history of biology and natural history forward.
– Muriel L. Blaisdell
– Richard (Chip)
– Manfred Laubichler
_______________________________________________
Sci-tech-public mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sci-tech-public
