Introducing the New Biosocial Landscape

For many decades, the study of society and the study of biology have been estranged from one another. This Handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of the extent to which, and how quickly, we are moving beyond the charged debates that characterized much of the biological and social thought of the twentieth century. In this Handbook we show how nuanced attention to both the biological and the social sciences opens up novel perspectives on some of the most significant sociological, anthropological, philosophical, and biological questions of our era. Our central assertion is that the life sciences, broadly conceived, are currently moving toward a more social view of biological processes, just as the social sciences are beginning to reincorporate notions of the biological body into their investigations.