The Postgenomic Family

Professor Nelson will discuss the state of the family after the genome. Nelson addresses the paradox of how ‘postgenomic’ can be seen as both denoting a marker of the proliferation of the logics and techniques of genetic science, and a historical and sociotechnical juncture in which the family becomes simultaneously highly flexible and deeply intractable. She will discuss this paradox in the context of kin-keeping practices, novel affiliations, and views of kinship as both a health risk and a health resource. Nelson is the author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination(University of Minnesota Press, 2011), which received the Distinguished Contribution to the Scholarship Book Award from the Race, Gender and Class section of the American Sociological Association. Nelson is also co-editor ofGenetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History(Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (New York University Press, 2001).