This is a book for anyone who has ever paused to wonder whether cloning will ever be legal. Why it is that "savior siblings" and sex selection provoke such strong reactions? Will there ever be such a thing as an artificial womb? Assisted reproductive technologies are unique in their capacity to challenge our assumptions and elicit passionate responses. Looking at the moral, philosophical, and legal issues surrounding cases of surrogacy, single or same-sex parenthood, retrieval of sperm from dead or dying patients, and the impregnation of post-menopausal women, this book questions whether these rapidly-developing technologies are refashioning the nature of the family. The US and UK have played unique roles in the development and regulation of reproductive technologies, and has been at the forefront of controversy over "savior siblings", designer babies, reproductive cloning, and embryo research. This book provides a clear and simple account of the techniques involved in assisted reproduction and embryo research, and discusses the legal and ethical implications of some of these technologies, illustrated by compelling descriptions of real-life cases. The book also addresses the ways in which reproductive technologies are regulated, critically examining the role of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority and comparing the UK's approach with that of other countries. Finally, it contemplates the possibility that some of our most deeply-held assumptions about human nature may be called into question by further developments in stem cell research and fertility treatments.

Standardization is one of the defining aspects of modern life, its presence so pervasive that it is usually taken for granted. However cumbersome, onerous, or simply puzzling certain standards may be, their fundamental purpose in streamlining procedures, regulating behaviors, and predicting results is rarely questioned. Indeed, the invisibility of infrastructure and the imperative of standardizing processes signify their absolute necessity. Increasingly, however, social scientists are beginning to examine the origins and effects of the standards that underpin the technology and practices of everyday life. Standards and Their Stories explores how we interact with the network of standards that shape our lives in ways both obvious and invisible. The main chapters analyze standardization in biomedical research, government bureaucracies, the insurance industry, labor markets, and computer technology, providing detailed accounts of the invention of "standard humans" for medical testing and life insurance actuarial tables, the imposition of chronological age as a biographical determinant, the accepted means of determining labor productivity, the creation of international standards for the preservation and access of metadata, and the global consequences of "ASCII imperialism" and the use of English as the lingua franca of the Internet. Accompanying these in-depth critiques are a series of examples that depict an almost infinite variety of standards, from the controversies surrounding the European Union's supposed regulation of banana curvature to the minimum health requirements for immigrants at Ellis Island, conflicting (and ever-increasing) food portion sizes, and the impact of standardized punishment metrics like "Three Strikes" laws. The volume begins with a pioneering essay from Susan Leigh Star and Martha Lampland on the nature of standards in everyday life that brings together strands from the several fields represented in the book. In an appendix, the editors provide a guide for teaching courses in this emerging interdisciplinary field, which they term "infrastructure studies," making Standards and Their Stories ideal for scholars, students, and those curious about why coffins are becoming wider, for instance, or why the Financial Accounting Standards Board refused to classify September 11 as an "extraordinary" event.

A total departure from previous writing about television, this book is the first ever to advocate that the medium is not reformable. Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to democratic processes -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever. Weaving personal experiences through meticulous research, the author ranges widely over aspects of television that have rarely been examined and never before joined together, allowing an entirely new, frightening image to emerge. The idea that all technologies are "neutral," benign instruments that can be used well or badly, is thrown open to profound doubt. Speaking of TV reform is, in the words of the author, "as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns."

"Alexander Nemerov is one of the greatest readers of American visual culture. This book has the revelatory power that only wide-ranging curiosity and true independence of mind can achieve." Richard H. Brodhead President of Duke University and author of Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America ; "A benchmark in the writing of art history and in studies of the Civil War, Acting in the Night occupies a category unto itself. It uniquely immerses the reader in a holistic experience of the Civil War and shows Nemerov as a cosummate stylist in the field of American art history."Kathleen Pyne author of Modernism and the Feminine Voice ; "This is a work of criticism that borders on poetry, a brilliant and extremely original book that invites us to rethink to the artistic world we study."Julia Reinhard Lupton author of Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life ; What can the performance of a single play on one night tell us about the world this event inhabited so briefly? Alexander Nemerov takes a performance of Macbeth in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1863--with Abraham Lincoln in attendance--to explore this question and illuminate American art, politics, technology, and life as it was being lived. Nemerov's inspiration is Wallace Stevens and his poem "Anecdote of the Jar,"in which a single object organizes the wilderness around it. For Nemerov, that evening's performance of Macbeth reached across the tragedy of civil war to acknowledge the horrors and emptiness of a world it tried and ultimately failed to change. --Book Jacket

The pathbreaking essays in this collection explore the history of consumption by synthesizing discrete historical literatures on consumer culture, gender, and the history of technology. Luxury hotels and the chocolate industry are among the diverse array of topics these authors use to demonstrate that consumption is both a material and a cultural process. Production and consumption become equally inextricable under close analysis. Tools from both the history of technology and gender studies illuminate how these categories intersect. Although broad social and technological trends influence the outcome of these stories, the authors emphasize the agaency of particular groups, including consumers, workers, manufacturers, and the "mediators" who communicate between producers and consumers. This volume will be of interest to historians in a wide range of fields.

Everybody knows that digital technology has revolutionized our economy and our lifestyles. But how many of us really understand the drivers behind the technology - the significance of going digital; the miniaturization of circuit boards; the role of venture capital in financing the revolution; the importance of research and development? How many of us understand what it takes to make money from innovative technologies? Should we worry about manufacturing going offshore? What is the role of India and China in the digital economy? Drawing on a lifetime's experience in the industry, as an engineer, a senior manager and as a partner in a venture capital firm, Henry Kressel offers an expert personalized answer to all these questions. He explains how the technology works, why it matters, how it is financed and what the key lessons are for public policy.

Combining true stories from the worlds of history, science, and politics, describes how the use of seven elements--iron, carbon, gold, silver, uranium, titanium, and silicon--has changed the world for both the better and worse

Argues that the technology of cyberspace will have a positive, humanizing influence on civilization, rather than creating a world where machines rule mankind

In this insightful social commentary, David Weinberger goes beyond misdirected hype to reveal what is truly revolutionary about the Web. Just as Marshall McLuhan forever altered our view of broadcast media, Weinberger shows that the Web is transforming not only social institutions but also bedrock concepts of our world such as space, time, self, knowledge-even reality itself. Through stories of life on the Web, a unique take on Web sites, and a pervasive sense of humor, Weinberger is the first to put the Web into the social and intellectual context we need to begin assessing its true impact on our lives. The irony, according to Weinberger, is that this seemingly weird new technology is more in tune with our authentic selves than is the modern world. Funny, provocative, and ultimately hopeful, Small Pieces Loosely Joined makes us look at the Web as never before.

Ecologies of Knowledge provides a comprehensive overview of issues relating to work, politics, and the latest perspectives on the role of materials, feminism, "nonhumans," and work practices as shaping scientific and technical knowledge. In addition to theoretical contributions, the authors cover biotechnology, computing, representations and space, aerospace engineering, and a variety of ethical perspectives and controversies in these domains.

Needing guidance and seeking insight, the Council of Europe approached Pierre Lévy, one of the world's most important and well-respected theorists of digital culture, for a report on the state (and, frankly, the nature) of cyberspace. The result is this extraordinary document, a perfectly lucid and accessible description of cyberspace-from infrastructure to practical applications-along with an inspired, far-reaching exploration of its ramifications. A window on the digital world for the technologically timid, the book also offers a brilliant vision of the philosophical and social realities and possibilities of cyberspace for the adept and novice alike. In an overview, Lévy discusses the distinguishing features of cyberspace and cyberculture from anthropological, philosophical, cultural, and sociological points of view. An optimist about the future potential of cyberspace, he eloquently argues that technology-and specifically the infrastructure of cyberspace, the Internet-can have a transformative effect on global society. Some of the issues he takes up are new art forms; changes in relationships to knowledge, education, and training; the preservation of linguistic and cultural differences; the emergence and implications of collective intelligence; the problems of social exclusion; and the impact of new technology on the city and democracy in general. In considerable detail, Lévy describes the ways in which cyberspace will help promote the growth of democracy, primarily through the participation of individuals or groups. His analysis is enlivened by his own personal impressions of cyberculture-garnered from bulletin boards, mailing lists, virtual reality demonstrations, andsimulations. Immediate in its details, visionary in its scope, deeply informed yet free of unnecessary technical language, Cyberculture is the book we require in our digital age. --Publisher.

A study of two bridges between science and society: governmental science policy and scientists' voluntary public-interest associations. According to a widespread stereotype, scientists occupy an ivory tower, isolated from other parts of society. To some extent this is true, and the resulting freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research has made possible extraordinary scientific advances. The spinoffs of "pure" science, however, have also had powerful impacts on society, and the potential for future impacts is even greater. The public and many policymakers, as well as many researchers, have paid insufficient attention to the mechanisms for interchange between science and society that have developed since World War II. Ivory Bridges examines two such mechanisms: governmental science policy (often involving the participation of "scientist administrators") and scientists' voluntary public-interest associations. The examination of science policy is guided by the notion of "Jeffersonian science"---defined as basic research on topics identified as being in the national interest. The book illustrates the concept with a historical case study of the Press-Carter Initiative of the late 1970s and proposes that a Jeffersonian approach would make a valuable addition to future science policy. The book also looks at the activities of citizen-scientists who have organized themselves to promote the welfare of society. It shows that their numerous and diverse organizations have made major contributions to the commonweal and that they have helped to prevent science from becoming either too subservient to government or too autonomous. An extensive appendix profiles a wide variety of these organizations.

Feminist, educator, Quaker, and physicist, Ursula Franklin has long been considered one of Canada's foremost advocates and practitioners of pacifism. The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map is a comprehensive collection of her work, and demonstrates subtle, yet critical, linkages across a range of subjects: the pursuit of peace and social justice, theology, feminism, environmental protection, education, government, and citizen activism. This thoughtful collection, drawn from more than four decades of research and teaching, brings readers into an intimate discussion with Franklin, and makes a passionate case for how to build a society centered around peace.

Drawing on a diverse array of thinkers from Plato to Kierkegaard, 'On The Internet' brings philosophical insight to the debate on how far the Internet can and cannot take us.

Papers on the location and behavior of zeros, including some of Polya's most influential work.The papers in this volume cluster about the following topics: the location of the zeros of polynomials and other analytic functions; the approximation of analytic functions by polynomials in which the location of zero is restricted (these papers represent some of Polya's most influential work); the behavior of the zeros of successive derivatives; the zeros of functions defined by trigonometric integrals; and the signs of derivatives and their analytic character. The volume also includes a paper that is not about zeros but contains a representation theorem for positive polynomials in several variables.

Anthropology has neglected the study of music. Music and digital media shows how and why this should be redressed. It does so by enabling music to expand the horizons of digital anthropology, demonstrating how the field can build interdisciplinary links to music and sound studies, digital/media studies, and science and technology studies.Music and Digital Media is the first comparative ethnographic study of the impact of digital media on music worldwide. It offers a radical and lucid new theoretical framework for understanding digital media through music, showing that music is today where the promises and problems of the digital assume clamouring audibility. The book contains ten chapters, eight of which present comprehensive original ethnographies; they are bookended by an authoritative introduction and a comparative postlude. Five chapters address popular, folk, art and crossover musics in the global South and North, including Kenya, Argentina, India, Canada and the UK. Three chapters bring the digital experimentally to the fore, presenting pioneering ethnographies of an extra-legal peer-to-peer site and the streaming platform Spotify, a series of prominent internet-mediated music genres, and the first ethnography of a global software package, the interactive music platform Max.The book is unique in bringing ethnographic research on popular, folk, art and crossover musics from the global North and South into a comparative framework on a large scale, and creates an innovative new paradigm for comparative anthropology. It shows how music enlarges anthropology while demanding to be understood with reference to classic themes of anthropological theory.

"This book develops a method that emphasizes the entwinements of "technology," "ideology," and the medium-specific particularities of photography in five twentieth-century cases in which photography and Jewish history intersect"--