
The extended University of Chicago Press family has recently mourned the passing of two former colleagues, Duke Hill and Bob Wallenius. In memoriam, retired Marketing Director Carol Kasper offers her remembrances. One thing I had always appreciated about working at the University of Chicago Press was that my colleagues were like family. I saw them almost every day. We worked and played together. I watched them grow and mature, and I was a little sad but glad for them when they went on to promising new opportunities. Lately, I’ve found myself saying final farewells to more than a few of these folks. Just last week I learned that two of marketing’s extended family members passed on. One was Duke Hill. Duke was a sales rep when I started as a student worker at UCP back in 1981. He always had a smile and a store of supportive words for a newbie like me. He later became Chicago’s sales manager. Duke was old school. He hung out at Jimmie’s. Cigarette in hand, he sat at sales meetings, nodded briskly, and said “piece of cake” when asked if one of our scholarly books could sell 2000 copies. And they did, back in . . .
Synthetic: An ethnography of life
Reposting this fabulous review and commentary by Christina Agapakis at New Scientist on Sophia Roosh’s Synthetic: How Life Got Made—after the jump. *** What is synthetic biology? This question has vexed synthetic biologists and journalists alike since the discipline was named at MIT more than 15 years ago. Is synthetic biology a technique? A goal? A state of mind? In her ethnography of the field, Synthetic, Sophia Roosth offers a useful answer. “Synthetic biologists, by a pragmatic definition, are people who identify as synthetic biologists… at a methodological level what unites this diverse cast of characters is sociology,” she says. The social life of synthetic biologists is just as important to understanding the field as its technical content; it’s the beliefs, ambitions and relationships of these people that make the field what it is. Roosth dives into the history, anthropology and peculiar society of synthetic biologists – of which I consider myself a member, having been trained in a synthetic biology lab across the river from the labs Roosth describes. Synthetic is a traditional anthropological monograph: there are chapters on religion, kinship, property, labour, the household and origin myths. Roosth grounds each chapter in her long-term engagement with the community, and her historical . . .
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