The Neuroscientific Turn

Transdisciplinarity in the Age of the Brain

Subjects: Cultural Studies
Hardcover : 9780472118267, 268 pages, 6 B&W illustrations, 6 x 9, August 2012
Ebook : 9780472028351, 280 pages, 7 illustrations, 6 x 9, August 2012
See expanded detail +
Or shop at these retailers: Amazon - Kindle

An interdisciplinary collection considering implications of the current 'neurorevolution'

Look Inside

Classroom Resources

Description

The Neuroscientific Turn brings together 19 scholars from a variety of fields to reflect on the promises of and challenges facing emergent "neurodisciplines" such as neuroethics, neuroeconomics, and neurohistory. In the aftermath of the Decade of the Brain, neuroscience has become one of the hottest topics of study---not only for scientists but also, increasingly, for scholars from the humanities and social sciences. While the popular press has simultaneously lauded and loathed the coming "neurorevolution," the academy has yet to voice any collective speculations about whether there is any coherence to this neuroscientific turn; what this turn will and should produce; and what implications it has for inter- or transdisciplinary inquiry.

Melissa M. Littlefield and Jenell M. Johnson provide an initial framework for this most recent of "turns" by bringing together 14 original essays by scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and neurosciences. The resulting collection will appeal to neuroscientists curious about their colleagues' interest in their work; scholars and students both in established neurodisciplines and in disciplines such as sociology or English wondering about how to apply neuroscience findings to their home disciplines; and to science, technology, and society scholars and students interested in the roles of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in the construction of knowledge.

Melissa M. Littlefield is Assistant Professor of English and Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 

Jenell M. Johnson is Associate Director of Disability Studies at the University of Wisconsin –Madison.