Inventive Life
Approaches to the New Vitalism
Edited by:
- Mariam Fraser - Goldsmiths College, UK
- Sarah Kember - Goldsmiths, UK, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
- Celia Lury - Warwick University, UK
February 2006 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
This book demonstrates how and why vitalism—the idea that life cannot be explained by the principles of mechanism—matters now. Vitalism resists closure and reductionism in the life sciences while simultaneously addressing the object of life itself. The aim of this collection is to consider the questions that vitalism makes it possible to ask: questions about the role and status of life across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities and questions about contingency, indeterminacy, relationality and change. All have special importance now, as the concepts of complexity, artificial life and artificial intelligence, information theory, and cybernetics become increasingly significant in more and more fields of activity.
Mariam Fraser, Sarah Kember and Celia Lury
Inventive Life
Monica Greco
On the Vitality of Vitalism
Suhail Malik
Information and Knowledge
Andrew Barry,
Pharmaceutical Matters
Adrian Mackenzie
The Performativity of Code
Software and Cultures of Circulation
Celia Lury
'Contemplating a Self-portrait as a Pharmacist'
Lisa Adkins
The New Economy, Property and Personhood
N Katherine Hayles
Computing the Human
Sarah Kember
Metamorphoses
Mariam Fraser
Making Music Matter