Publications of Interest BioScience The journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, BioScience, “is looking for manuscripts on the history and philosophy of biology for its Thinking of Biology department,” according to a letter from Editor Julie Ann Miller to ISHPSSB’s Peter Taylor. She writes, “The articles there must be written to appeal to biologists (rather than historians or philosophers). Contributors to the department include Sahorta Sarkar and Jon Beckwith.” Contact: Julie Ann Miller, Ph. D., AIBS, 730 11th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001-4521. Telephone: (202) 628-1500. E-mail: [log in to unmask] Peter J. Taylor, Saul E. Halfon, Paul N. Edwards, editors, Changing Life Genomes, Ecologies, Bodies, Commodities A fascinating look at how the culture of today’s life sciences affects our culture. This volume arose out of the 1993 ISHPSSB Conference sessions “Changing Life in the New World Dis/order.” In laboratories all over the world, life — even the idea of life — is changing. And with these changes, whether they result in square tomatoes or cyborgs, come transformations in our social order — sometimes welcome, sometimes troubling, depending on where we stand. Changing Life offers a close look at how the mutable forms and concepts of life link the processes of science to those of information, finance, and commodities. The contributors, drawn from disciplines within science and technology studies and from geography, ecology, and developmental biology, provide a range of interpretive angles on the metaphors, narratives, models, and practices of the life sciences. Their essays — about planetary management and genome sequencing, ecologies and cyborgs — address actual and imagined transformations at the center and at the margins of transnational relations, during the post-Cold War era and in times to come. They consider such topics as the declining regulatory state, ascendant transnational networks, and capital’s legal reign over intellectual property, life-form patents, and marketable pollution licenses. Changing Life argues that we cannot understand the power of the life sciences in modern society without exploring the intersections of science and technology with other cultural realms. To that end, this book represents a collective attempt to join the insights of science and technology studies and cultural studies. As a work of cultural politics, it makes a contribution to changing life in a context of changing social order. Contributors: Simon Cole, Cornell University; Scott Gilbert, Swarthmore College; Herbert Gottweis, University of Salzburg; Yrjö Haila, University of Tampere, Finland; Rosaleen Love, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia; and Richard A. Schroeder, Rutgers University. Peter J. Taylor is Eugene Lang Professor of Social Change at Swarthmore College. Saul E. Halfon is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. Paul N. Edwards is acting assistant professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Stanford University. 240 pages, Cultural Politics Series, Volume 13, Translation rights: University of Minnesota Press, $19.95 Paper ISBN 0-8166-3013-5 $49.95 Cloth ISBN 0-8166-3012-7 F 97 5 - 7/ 8 x 9 September 1997 Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin, editors, Ecology and Empire: The Environmental History of Settler Societies ISHPSSB members might be interested to know that Edinburgh University Press in Scotland has just published a new book called Ecology and Empire: The Environmental History of Settler Societies, edited by Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin. Ecology and Empire examines the relationship between the expansion of empire and the environmental experience of the extra-European world. For the first time it moves the debate beyond the North American frontier by comparing the experience of settler societies in Australia, South Africa and Latin America. From Australian water management and the crisis of deforestation in Latin America, to beef farming in the Transvaal, this topical book provides a broad comparative historical approach to the impact of humankind on the ecological systems on which settler societies base their livelihood. If you are teaching a relevant course with at least 12 students, we will happily send you an inspection copy of this book. E-mail your details, including course name, number of students, and course level to [log in to unmask] If you do not adopt the book on your course, you will have 28 days (60 days overseas) to return it. Please note: this offer does not apply to subscribers in North America, since Washington University Press hold the distribution rights there, nor to subscribers in Australia and New Zealand, where Melbourne University Press hold the rights, nor to subscribers in Southern Africa, where Natal University Press hold the rights. Any of these presses will be delighted to supply you with an inspection copy — please contact them directly. Jesper Hoffmeyer, Barbara J. Haveland, (Translator), Signs of Meaning in the Universe (Advances in Semiotics), Indiana University Press, 1997. Philosophy and Religion Editor’s Recommended Book, July 1, 1997: Jesper Hoffmeyer is on to something significant. Whereas semiotics is often a dull analysis of formal symbols, Hoffmeyer’s biosemiotics is a lively natural history of signs that interprets evolution as a continuous advance in semiotic freedom. All living things, according to Hoffmeyer, are constantly reacting to their environment by interpreting the signs in their own unwelt, or interior representation of the surrounding world. Freedom and chaotic self-organization thus become the hallmarks of all life. Based on sound research and written in a delightfully accessible style, Signs of Meaning in the Universe should be interpreted as an advance in both philosophy and science. Card catalog description: For three and a half billion years the living creatures of the natural world have been engaged in an increasingly complex and extensive conversation. Cells, tissue, organs, plants, animals, entire populations and ecosystems buzz with communication, incessantly emitting and receiving signals. These signs have been there as long as life itself. They make up the semiosphere, a sphere like the biosphere, but one constituted of messages — sounds, odors, movements, colors, electrical fields, chemical signals — the signs of life. This book examines the radical premise that the sign, not the molecule, is the crucial, underlying factor in the study of life. On this tour of the universe of signs, Jesper Hoffmeyer travels back to the Big Bang, visits the tiniest places deep within cells, and ends his journey with us — complex organisms capable of speech and reason. He shows that life at its most basic depends on the survival of messages written in the code of DNA molecules, and on the tiny cell — the fertilized egg — that must interpret the message and from it construct an organism. What propels this journey is Hoffmeyer’s attempt to discover how nature could come to mean something to someone; indeed, how “something” could become “someone.” How could a biological self become a semiotic self? And how, finally, do we unite these two different selves, “nature” and “mind” which we all carry in us and which all too often are at war with each other? Table of Contents Preface 1. Signifying: On lumps in nothingness, on “not” 2. Forgetting: On history and codes: The dialectic of oblivion 3. Repeating: On Nature’s tendency to acquire habits 4. Inventing: On life and self-reliance, on subjectivity 5. Opening Up: On the sensory universe of creatures: The liberation of the semiosphere 6. Defining: The mobile brain: The language of cells 7. Connecting: On the triadic ascendance of dualism 8. Sharing: On language: Existential bioanthropology 9. Uniting: Consciousness: The bodily governor within the brain 10. Healing: On ethics: Reuniting two stories in one body-mind Notes Bibliography Index Physical Theory in Biology We are pleased to announce the publication of the above-mentioned book which probe into the physics of life and why it matters. The book is a scientific adventure in which biological understanding is enriched by physical theory without losing its own inherent traditions and perspectives. The book explores organic complexity and self-organization through research applications to embryology, cell biology, behavioral neuroscience, and evolution. The book is suitable for physical scientists, biologists, engineers, applied mathematicians, and philosophers. We are always eager to bring the book to the knowledge of more researchers and academics and would like you to help. Should you have any mailing lists or contacts to whom we might be able to send our information to, please kindly send them to us. Also, should you know or attend any good conferences at which we could promote our book, please do let us know. In addition, you might want to purchase a copy of this book for your own reference. Please do not hesitate to contact Er Bee Eng at [log in to unmask] Visit our home page at http://www.wspc.com.sg Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences A call for papers: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences is a new journal whose first issue will be published at the beginning of 1998. The journal will be devoted to historical, sociological, philosophical and ethical aspects of the life and environmental sciences, of the sciences of mind and behaviour, and of the medical and biomedical sciences and technologies. The period covered will be from the middle of the nineteenth century (the time of the so-called “laboratory revolution” in medicine and the life sciences) to the present. The editorial policy will be in line with the policy of the parent journal, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Contributions will be drawn from a wide range of countries and cultural traditions; we shall encourage both specialist articles, and articles combining historical, philosophical, and sociological approaches; and we shall favour works of interest to scientists and medics as well as to specialists in the history, philosophy and sociology of the sciences. The table of contents of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science is available at the Elsevier Science Ltd web site at the following address: http://www.elsevier.com/inca/publications/store/3/0/5/8/6/30586.pub.shtml The editors are seeking original English language articles in the field of the new journal. For these the word limit is c. 10,000. They would also welcome proposals for 3-4000 word essay-reviews. Prospective authors should submit copies of papers in duplicate, typed and double-spaced (including quotations and footnotes) on quarto or A4 paper. They should retain a copy for the purpose of checking proofs. Illustrations are encouraged; authors should be prepared, if their paper is accepted, to supply good quality copies of any illustration and any necessary permissions for reproduction of copyright material. All articles and volunteered essay-reviews will be blind refereed. Contributions and proposals should be sent to Dr. Marina Frasca-Spada, Associate Editor, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, U.K. E-mail: [log in to unmask] Science as Culture Science as Culture (No. 27, Vol. 6, Part 2) has now appeared in the US and will soon do so elsewhere. The editors hope that members of this forum will subscribe to the journal, which has a unique point of view in a world where most commentators on science, technology, medicine and other forms of expertise suffer from a remarkable timidity. Contents “Inoculating Gadgets Against Ridicule,” Mike Michael “The Corporate Suppression of Inventions, Conspiracy Theories, and an Ambivalent American Dream,” Stephen Demeo “Reducing AIDS Risk,” Simon Carter “Sperm Stories: Romantic, Entrepreneurial, and Environmental Narratives about Treating Male Infertility,” Kirsten Dwight Reviews “Greening Public Policy: Sustainability and Beyond,” Dale Jamieson “The Enclosure of Nature and the Nature of Enclosures,” John Roosa “The Commodification of Seeds,” Dwijen Rangnekar “Virtual Struggles?” Don Parson In future issues: “Designing flexibility: science and work in the age of flexible accumulation,” Emily Martin “Healthy bodies, healthy citizens: the anti-secondhand smoke campaign,” Roddy Reid “Israel’s first test-tube baby,” Daphna Birenbaum Carmeli 160 pages, Science as Culture is published quarterly by Process Press Ltd. in Britain: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html and Guilford Publications Inc. in North America: [log in to unmask] For information about subscriptions and a list of back issues (half price to subscribers), go to: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html#science Society and Animals The journal Society & Animals announces that it is expanding its scope to include historical studies, and encourages historians of science to submit manuscripts to the journal for consideration. Society & Animals publishes studies which describe and analyze our experience of nonhuman animals. It spans four broad areas: (1) applied uses of animals (research, education, medicine, and agriculture); (2) animals in the popular culture (entertainment, companion animals, animal symbolism); (3) wildlife and the environment; (4) sociopolitical movements, public policy and the law. Any current method within the scholarly traditions of the social sciences and humanities may be applied. Please contact: Kenneth Shapiro, Editor, P.O. Box 1297, Washington Grove, MD 20880-1297. History of Psychology History of Psychology will begin quarterly publication early in 1998. It will be published by the American Psychological Association for its Division of the History of Psychology. Direct inquiries to: Michael M. Sokal, HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY, Department of Humanities and Arts, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280 USA. Telephone: (508) 831-5712. Fax: (508) 831-5932. E-mail: [log in to unmask]; WWW URL: http://www.wpi.edu/~histpsy Web sites/E-mail Lists of Interest Hayek-L on [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] is an international network for the discussion of the ideas of Friedrich A. Hayek. Hayek-L is intended as a resource for scholars and others doing research connected to the contributions of Friedrich Hayek. Hayek is the co-originator of the Hebb-Hayek synaptic learning model, and author of the well known The Sensory Order. Hayek’s work in neuroscience has gained prominence in recent years due to Gerald Edelman’s Neural Darwinism, and Joaquin Fuster’s Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primates. In addition, Hayek is the author of pathbreaking discussions on the nature of complex phenomena, spontaneous order, and on the character of generic explanations dealing with this sort of phenomena, work that has informed the thinking of Gerald Edelman, Walter Weimer, Karl Popper, Robert Nozick, Don Lavoie, Axel Leijonhufvud, Joaquine Fuster and other leading figures in economics, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences. Hayek is also the originator of the intertemporal equilibrium construction, and his work is the spur for much of the literature on dispersed and imperfect knowledge. Hayek was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974 for his work on the interconnection of economic phenomena. Robert Skidelsky, the respected biographer of John Maynard Keynes, describes Hayek as “the dominant intellectual influence of the last quarter of the twentieth century.” The basic purpose of the Hayek-L list is to serve as a forum for scholarly discussions and as a clearing house for the distribution of information on academic conferences, publication opportunities, fellowship information, academic grants, and job openings of interest to Hayek scholars. Subscribers are encouraged to post questions, comments, or announcements of interest to individuals working on topics related to Hayek’s writings. Appropriate postings might pertain to work currently in progress, the development of course materials, bibliographical material of interest to Hayek scholars, useful internet resources, etc. The list is for scholars and others interested the ideas of Friedrich A. Hayek without restriction according to interest or professional affiliation. Hayek-L is not devoted to any particular niche within the scope of Hayek’s oeuvre, but instead welcomes contributions on any aspect of the full range of Hayek’s contribution to contemporary scholarship. Discussions of the scholarly contributions of other important thinkers who have developed or criticized aspects of Hayek’s work are also welcomed. E.g. discussions of the work of Gerald Edelman, Karl Popper, Frank Knight, Ronald Dworkin, Joaquin Fuster, Walter Weimer, Robert Nozick, John Maynard Keynes, Leonid Horwicz and others related to the work of Friedrich Hayek are also welcome. To subscribe to Hayek-L, send mail to: [log in to unmask] with the message (body): SUBSCRIBE HAYEK-L your full name See also the Hayek Scholars Page at: http://members.aol.com/gregransom/hayekpage.htm Robert Maxwell Young On-Line I am glad to announce that (with the aid of Helen Davies) I have put my first book on my web site: Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century: Cerebral Localization and Its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier, (Oxford, 1970, 1990). Although the title may look forbidingly technical and specialised, the book is an attempt to think about the relationship between mind and brain in the period from the first empirical to the first experimental work on the topic. Its net is cast broadly to include theories of human nature, evolution and the history of psychology. One way of viewing its inspiration is that I sought to look behind the approach Freud took in his first book, On Aphasia, (1901). Another is that I sought to explore the interrelations between biological and psychological theory in the nineteenth century — the foundations of our present ways of thinking about these matters. In addition to obtaining the rights to that book in order to put it on the net, I have placed four others on my web site: Darwin’s Metaphor: Nature’s Place in Victorian Culture, (Cambridge, 1985); Mental Space, (Process Press, 1994); Whatever Happened to Human Nature? (Process Press, in press); The Culture of British Psychoanalysis, (Process Press, forthcoming). These books, along with about seventy articles and essays are available for reading or downloading at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/index.html Some more personal essays and information about the journals, Free Associations: Psychoanalysis, Groups, Politics, Culture and Science as Culture, along with the other existing and planned publications of Process Press, are available at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/index.html There are facilities for sending comments and feedback at these sites. I shall continue putting my writings on the web until all of the substantial ones are there. Robert Maxwell Young, Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, UK. Telephone: (+44) 171 607 8306. E-mail: [log in to unmask] Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html Horus Gets in Gear Professor Ronald Tobey has put his student guide to the History of Science on the World Wide Web. The guide is entitled Horus Gets in Gear: A Beginner’s Guide to Research in the History of Science. It can be found at: http://www.kaiwan.com/~lucknow/horus/guide/tp1.html H-SCI-MED-TECH Announcing the inauguration of H-SCI-MED-TECH, an electronic discussion list intended for the growing number of scholars who study science, medicine and technology across a wide variety of periods and regions of the world. Our aim is to foster communication on these subjects within and across the disciplines of history, the history of science, the history of medicine and the history of technology, which have become distinct professional fields despite their obvious (and not so obvious) interconnections. H-SCI-MED-TECH is one of 80+ discussion lists in history and the humanities sponsored by H-NET. Subscribers to will be able to share information about teaching and research, to get news of professional activities (e.g., jobs, conferences, fellowships and grants) and, most importantly, to participate in conversations about matters of common interest: new methods, new questions and new scholarship. The editors (Nina Lermann, Whitman College; Harry M. Marks, Johns Hopkins University; and Kathryn Olesko, Georgetown University) welcome your participation and views about what H-SCI-MED-TECH should be doing. To subscribe, send the following message: “subscribe H-SCI-MED-TECH your name, your institution” to: [log in to unmask] Science as Culture The journal Science as Culture has an associated e-mail forum: [log in to unmask] To subscribe, send the following message: SUB SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE yourfirstname yourlastname to: [log in to unmask] A web site associated with the journal and forum holds articles from back issues of the journal, as well as submissions under consideration (not obligatory), whose authors may benefit from constructive comments for purposes of revisions before the hard copy is printed, as well as longer piece not suitable for the e-mail format which forum members may wish to discuss: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/rmy/sac.html