361 research outputs found
Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School
This review considers Stuart Jeffriesâs Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School. Providing a detailed account of the work and lives of the Frankfurt School, Jeffries is commended for his ability to present an illustrative biography of the schoolâs members and associates as well as the variety of topics that their work engaged with. However, while Jefferies manages to merge biography and academic theory in a readable and at times detailed and engaging narrative, such work is undermined by a tendency to focus on the salacious gossip of a group of men whose real-life complications tend to overcome the significance of their arguments. Nevertheless, in view of the Frankfurt Schoolâs work, it is suggested that the bookâs paradoxes can serve as an important opening to contemporary topics and, more importantly, to theorizing these contradictions in light of the Frankfurt School
Elective affinities of the Protestant ethic : Weber and the chemistry of capitalism
Peer reviewedPostprin
Local mutations:On the tentative beginnings of molecular oncology in Britain 1980â2000
Popular and scientific accounts of the molecularisation of cancer typically attribute it to advances in laboratory science, particularly molecular geneticists. However, historical research has indicated that clinical expertise input was often vital for advancing such work. The present paper reinforces that view. Looking in detail at British research into the molecular genetics of familial cancers during the 1980s and 1990s, it shows that that research, too, depended on crucial input from family cancer clinics. Moreover, the development of clinical services for familial cancers was in turn shaped by the demands of contributing to molecular genetic research. The paper concludes that accounts of the molecularisation of cancer that suppose a one-way transfer of knowledge and practice from laboratory to clinic misrepresent the complex interactions that were involved in molecularising familial cancers, and that were informed by the particular local and national circumstances in which they took shape
Introduction to "Working Across Species"
Comparison between different animal species is omnipresent in the history of science and medicine but rarely subject to focussed historical analysis. The articles in the ââWorking Across Speciesââ topical collection address this deficit by
looking directly at the practical and epistemic work of cross-species comparison. Drawn from papers presented at a Wellcome-Trust-funded workshop in 2016, these papers investigate various ways that comparison has been made persuasive and successful, in multiple locations, by diverse disciplines, over the course of two centuries. They explore the many different animal features that have been considered to be (or else made) comparable, and the ways that animals have shaped science and medicine through the use of comparison. Authors demonstrate that comparison between species often transcended the range of practices typically employed with experimental animal models, where standardised practises and apparatus were applied to standardised bodies to produce generalizable, objective
data; instead, comparison across species has often engaged diverse groups of nonstandard species, made use of subjective inferences about phenomena that cannot be directly observed, and inspired analogies that linked physiological and behavioural characteristics with the apparent affective state of non-human animals. Moreover,
such comparative practices have also provided unusually fruitful opportunities for collaborative connections between different research traditions and disciplines
A fresh look at instrumentation - an introduction
The theme of "instrumentation between science, state and industry" does not square well with the venerable discourse which opposes "science" and "technology" in social studies of science. In this discourse, "technology" stands for the contrary of "science"; it represents the practical uses of science in society at large and is understood as separate from the somehow autonomous sphere of "science" (Layton 1971a). This vocabulary, widespread as it may be, is not very useful for our purposes, and, for that matter, for any inquiry into the role of instruments. Technology, in the sense of technical instruments and the knowledge systems that go with them, pervades all societal systems. There are technologies of science, of industry, of state, and so forth, and it would be ill-advised to assume that, in the end, they all flow out of "science." But even if the crude opposition of science and technology has little analytic value, the dual problem remains: how to effectively conceive the dynamic relationship between scientific spheres and other societal spheres, and how to conceive the role that technological matters play in this relationship
Reconceptualizing Profit-Orientation in Management: A Karmic View on "Return on Investment" Calculations
From the perspective of the present day, Puritan-inspired capitalism seems to have succeeded globally, including in India. Connected to this, short-term profit-orientation in
management seems to constrain the scope of different management approaches in a tight ideological corset. This article discusses the possibility of replacing this Puritan doctrine with the crucial elements of Indian philosophy: Karma and samsara. In doing so, the possibility of
revising the guiding principles in capitalist management becomes conceivable, namely the monetary focus of profit-orientation and its short-term orientation. This perspective allows a detachment of the concept of profit from the realm of money, as the seemingly only
objectifiable measure of profit. Furthermore it allows a removal of the expectation that every "investment" has to directly "pay off". A karmic view offers management a possible facility for being more caring about the needs and fates of other stakeholders, as profit-orientation
would no longer be attached as a factual constraint to merely accumulate money. (author's abstract
Health Industries in the Twentieth Century. Introduction
This article is the introduction to the special issue' Health Industries in the Twentieth Century'. It offers a broad literature review of scholarly works about the history of health and medicine, and stresses the opportunities for business historians to tackle the field of healthcare
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