Hannah Landecker uses the tools of history and social science to study contemporary developments in the life sciences, and their historical taproots in the twentieth century. She is currently working on a book called “American Metabolism,” which looks at transformations to the metabolic sciences wrought by the rise of epigenetics, microbiomics, cell signaling and hormone biology.
Abstract: Professor Landecker will present ethnographic observations from spaces of contemporary biomedical science where the relationships between industrialization, work, energy, food, and metabolic disorder are being actively rethought and redrawn. She argues that the contours of a postindustrial metabolism are coming into view, in which concerns about asynchrony, dysbiology, instability, and regulatory crisis displace the traditional concerns of labor, fatigue, caloric energy, and production.