Marking time

Introduction On the Anthropology of the Contemporary -- Inquiry -- The Legitimacy of the Contemporary-- 2000. Drosophila Lessons -- The Future of Human Nature -- Bio-Ethics: The Question Concerning Humanism -- Nature -- Security, Danger, Risk -- Contemporary Formations-- Conclusion -- Adjacency-- Timing -- Situating: Tolerance and Benevolence -- Telos: A Zone of Discomfort -- Untimely Work -- Observation -- Bildung-- Observing the Future-- Responsibility to Ignorance -- Observing Observers Observing -- Chronicling Observation-- Original History-- Writing Things: Deictic not Epideictic-- -- Vehement Contemporaries -- Rugged Terrain -- Elements of a Contemporary Moral Landscape-- Genomics as Ethical Terrain -- Agon in the Genomic Terrain -- Thumós: Appropriate Anger -- Vehement Contemporaries-- -- Marking Time: Gerhard Richter -- Contemporary Modern-- Biotechnical Forms-- Richter: Double Negations-- Art Critics and Others -- Our Contemporary -- Nature-- Photography-- Marking Time-- Abstract Images-- Objects-- Remediation-- -- Tomorrow¿s Vital Difference -- Problem-- Observation (Beob-achten): Events, Contexts, Modes-- The Actual-- The Contemporary-- The Emergent-- Vitality: Modern and Contemporary-- Contemporary: Synthetic Biology-- New Assemblages-- Conclusion-- Notes-- Bibliography-- Index--

In Marking Time, Paul Rabinow presents his most recent reflections on the anthropology of the contemporary. Drawing richly on the work of Michel Foucault, John Dewey, Niklas Luhmann, and, most interestingly, German painter Gerhard Richter, Rabinow offers a set of conceptual tools for scholars examining cutting-edge practices in the life sciences, security, new media and art practices, and other emergent phenomena. Taking up topics that include bioethics, anger and competition among molecular biologists, the lessons of the Drosophila genome, the nature of ethnographic observation in radically new settings, and the moral landscape shared by scientists and anthropologists, Rabinow shows how anthropology remains relevant to contemporary debates. By turning abstract philosophical problems into real-world explorations and offering original insights, Marking Time is a landmark contribution to the continuing re-invention of anthropology and the human sciences. ; ;