| 1 | Life Now | Editorial. "Meanings of 'Life'." Nature 447 (2007): 1031–2. |
| 2 | What is Life? |
 Keller, Evelyn Fox. "Synthetic Biology and the Origin of Living Form." In Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines. Harvard University Press, 2002, pp. 15–49. ISBN: 9780674007468. [Preview with Google Books]
Kay, Lily. "In the Beginning Was the Word?: The Genetic Code and the Book of Life." In The Science Studies Reader. Edited by Mario Biagioli. Routledge, 1999, pp. 224–33. ISBN: 9780415918688. Keller, Evelyn Fox. "Molecules, Messages, and Memory: Life and the Second Law." In Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology. Columbia University Press, 1995, pp. 43–78. ISBN: 9780231102049. [Preview with Google Books] Schrödinger, Erwin.  What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. (PDF) Cambridge University Press, 1946. ISBN: 9780684813264. [Preview with Google Books] (Skim)
Bedau, Mark. "The Nature of Life." In The Philosophy of Artificial Life. Edited by Margaret Boden. Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 332–57. ISBN: 9780198751557. Margulis, Lynn, and Dorian Sagan. "Life: The Eternal Enigma." In What Is Life? University of California Press, 2000, pp. 1–32. ISBN: 9780520220218. [Preview with Google Books]
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| 3 | Evolutionary Narratives |
Keller, Evelyn Fox. The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nurture. Duke University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780822347316. [Preview with Google Books] Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 214–36, 240–50, 316–29, and 381–4. (Skim) ISBN: 9780691023694. [Preview with Google Books] Fedigan, Linda Marie. "The Changing Role of Women in Models of Human Evolution." Annual Review of Anthropology 15 (1986): 25–66, read only 27–9. Beers, Gillian, and respondent. "Late Darwin and the Problem of the Human." On the Human, a project of National Humanities Center, http://onthehuman.org/ (2010). Helmreich, Stefan, and Heather Paxson. "Sex on the Brain: A Natural History of Rape and the Dubious Doctrines of Evolutionary Psychology (with Heather Paxson)." In Why America's Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back. Edited by Hugh Gusterson, and Catherine Besteman. University of California Press, 2005, pp. 180–205. ISBN: 9780520243569. [Preview with Google Books] Marks, Jonathan. "98% Chimpanzee and 35% Daffodil: The Human Genome in Evolutionary and Cultural Context." In Genetic Nature / Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two-Culture Divide. Edited by Alan Goodman, Deborah Heath, and M. Susan Lindee. University of California Press, 2003, pp. 132–52. ISBN: 9780520237933. [Preview with Google Books]
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| 4 | Biopolitics |
Foucault, Michel. "Right of Death and Power Over Life." In The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. Vintage, 1990, pp. 135–59. ISBN: 9780679724698. Rabinow, Paul. "Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality." In Zone 6: Incorporations. Edited by Jonathan Crary, and Sanford Kwinter. Zone Books, 1992, pp. 234–52. ISBN: 9780942299298. Taussig, Karen-Sue, Rayna Rapp, and Deborah Heath. "Flexible Eugenics: Technologies of Self in the Age of Eugenics." In Genetic Nature / Culture: Anthropology and Science beyond the Two-Culture Divide. Edited by Alan Goodman, Deborah Heath, and M. Susan Lindee. University of California Press, 2003, pp. 58–76. ISBN: 9780520237933. [Preview with Google Books] Petryna, Adriana. "Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations." Osiris 2nd Series, 19 (2004): 250–65. Nguyen, Vinh-kim. "Antiretroviral Globalism, Biopolitics, and Therapeutic Citizenship." In Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Edited by Aihwa Ong, and Stephen Collier. Wiley-Blackwell, 2004, pp. 124–43. ISBN: 9781405123587. [Preview with Google Books] Redfield, Peter. "Doctors, Borders, and Life in Crisis." Cultural Anthropology 20, no. 3 (2005): 328–61.
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| 5 | Biology for Sale |
Ritvo, Harriet. "Possessing Mother Nature: Genetic Capital in Eighteenth-century Britain." In Early Modern Conceptions of Property. Edited by J. Brewer, and S. Staves. Routledge, 1996, pp. 413–26. ISBN: 9780415153140. [Preview with Google Books] Landecker, Hannah. "Between Beneficence and Chattel: The Human Biological in Law and Science." Science in Context 12, no. 1 (1999): 203–25. Waldby, Catherine. "Stem Cells, Tissue Cultures and the Production of Biovalue." Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 6, no. 3 (2002): 305–23. Hayden, Cori. "From Market to Market: Bioprospecting's Idioms of Inclusion." American Ethnologist 30, no. 3 (2003): 359–71. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "The Last Commodity: Post-Human Ethics and the Global Traffic in 'Fresh' Organs." In Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Edited by Aihwa Ong, and Stephen Collier. Wiley-Blackwell, 2004, pp. 145–67. ISBN: 9781405123587. [Preview with Google Books]
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| 6 | Animals, Wild and Domesticated |
Ritvo, Harriet. "Race, Breed, and Myths of Origin: Chillingham Cattle as Ancient Britons." (PDF - 6.2MB) Representations 39 (1992): 1–22. Grasseni, Christa. "Designer Cows: The Practice of Cattle Breeding between Skill and Standardization." (PDF - 2.6MB) Society and Animals 13, no. 1 (2005): 33–49. Haraway, Donna. "Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden." In Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Societies. Routledge, 1990, pp. 26–58. ISBN: 9780415901147. [Preview with Google Books] Mitman, Gregg. "Domesticating Nature on the Television Set." In Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film. Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 132–56. ISBN: 9780674715714. [Preview with Google Books]
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| 7 | Biodiversity, Natural and Artificial |
Massey, Adrianne. "Crops, Genes, and Evolution." Gastronomica 1, no. 3 (2001): 20–9. Gusterson, Hugh. "Decoding the Debate on 'Frankenfood'." In Making Threats: Biofears and Environmental Anxieties. Edited by Betsy Hartmann, Banu Subramaniam, and Charles Zerner. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005, pp. 109–33. ISBN: 9780742549074. [Preview with Google Books] Haraway, Donna. "Mice Into Wormholes: A Technoscience Fugue in Two Parts." In
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_ Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience. Routledge, 1997, pp. 55–63, and 79–94. ISBN: 9780415912457. [Preview wtih Google Books] Mansfield, Barbara. "From Catfish to Organic Fish: Making Distinctions about Nature as Cultural Economic Practice." Geoforum 34, no. 3 (2003): 329–42.
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| 8 | Race in the Genomic Age |
Gould, Stephen Jay. "Why We Should Not Name Human Races—A Biological View." In Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History. W. W. Norton & Company, 1977, pp. 231–6. ISBN: 9780393064254. Smedley, Audrey. ""Race" and the Construction of Human Identity." American Anthropologist 100, no. 3 (1998): 690–702. Duster, Troy. "The Sociology of Science and the Revolution in Molecular Biology." In The Blackwell Companion to Sociology. Edited by Judith R. Blau. Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, pp. 213–26. ISBN: 9780631213185. [Preview with Google Books] Rotimi, Charles. "Genetic Ancestry Tracing and African Identity: A Double-Edged Sword?" Developing World Bioethics 3, no. 2 (2003): 151–8. Reardon, Jenny. "The Human Genome Diversity Project: A Case Study in Coproduction." Social Studies of Science 31, no. 3 (2001): 357–88. Montoya, Michael. "Bioethnic Conscription: Genes, Race, and Mexicana/o Ethnicity in Diabetes Research." Cultural Anthropology 22, no. 1 (2007): 94–128. Kahn, Jonathan. "Patenting Race." Nature Biotechnology 24, no. 11 (2006): 1349–51.
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| 9 | Remixing Sex |
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough." (PDF) The Sciences (1993): 20–4. Chase, Cheryl. "Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4, no. 2 (1998): 189–211. Thompson, Charis. "Strategic Naturalizing: Kinship in an Infertility Clinic." In Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Edited by Sarah Franklin, and Susan McKinnon. Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 175–202. ISBN: 9780822327967. [Preview with Google Books] Franklin, Sarah. "Sex." In Dolly Mixtures: The Remaking of Genealogy. Duke University Press Books, 2007, pp. 19–45. ISBN: 9780822339205. [Preview with Google Books]
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| 10 | Biopolitical Technology |
Landecker, Hannah. Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies. Harvard University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780674023284. [Preview with Google Books] Kelty, Chris, and Hannah Landecker. "A Theory of Animation: Cells, L-systems, and Film." Grey Room 17 (2004): 30–63.
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| 11 | Earthly Aliens |
Helmreich, Stefan. Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. University of California Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780520250628.[Preview with Google Books] |
| 12 | Class Conference | No readings |
