Marking Time: On the Anthropology of the Contemporary

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.

Author: Paul Rabinow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 11/18/2007
Pages: 168
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.51h x 6.22w x 0.52d
ISBN: 9780691133638

About the Author
Paul Rabinow is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author, most recently, of A Machine to Make a Future: Biotech Chronicles (Princeton).