Making Human

Making Human
Author: Matthew S. Weinert
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2015-02-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0472052497

An International Relations scholar examines the processes by which formerly denigrated peoples become recognized as human beings worthy of rights and dignity

Working Knowledge

Working Knowledge
Author: Joel Isaac
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2012-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674070046

The human sciences in the English-speaking world have been in a state of crisis since the Second World War. The battle between champions of hard-core scientific standards and supporters of a more humanistic, interpretive approach has been fought to a stalemate. Joel Isaac seeks to throw these contemporary disputes into much-needed historical relief. In Working Knowledge he explores how influential thinkers in the twentieth century's middle decades understood the relations among science, knowledge, and the empirical study of human affairs. For a number of these thinkers, questions about what kinds of knowledge the human sciences could produce did not rest on grand ideological gestures toward "science" and "objectivity" but were linked to the ways in which knowledge was created and taught in laboratories and seminar rooms. Isaac places special emphasis on the practical, local manifestations of their complex theoretical ideas. In the case of Percy Williams Bridgman, Talcott Parsons, B. F. Skinner, W. V. O. Quine, and Thomas Kuhn, the institutional milieu in which they constructed their models of scientific practice was Harvard University. Isaac delineates the role the "Harvard complex" played in fostering connections between epistemological discourse and the practice of science. Operating alongside but apart from traditional departments were special seminars, interfaculty discussion groups, and non-professionalized societies and teaching programs that shaped thinking in sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, science studies, and management science. In tracing this culture of inquiry in the human sciences, Isaac offers intellectual history at its most expansive.

How to Grow a Human

How to Grow a Human
Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2019-10-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 022667617X

The award-winning science writer shares “a winding romp through advances in cell biology [that] pushes readers to ponder the boundaries of life” (Science). In the summer of 2017, scientists removed a tiny piece of flesh from Philip Ball’s arm and turned it into a rudimentary “mini-brain.” The skin cells, removed from his body, did not die but were instead transformed into nerve cells that independently arranged themselves into a dense network and communicated with each other, exchanging the raw signals of thought. This was life—but whose? That disconcerting question is the focus of Philip Ball’s How to Grow a Human. In this mind-bending tour of cutting-edge cell biology, Ball shows how recent innovations could lead to tailor-made replacement organs; new medical advances for repairing damage and assisting conception; and new ways of “growing a human.” Such methods would also create new options for gene editing, with all the attendant moral dilemmas. Ball argues that these advances can never be “just about the science,” because they are already laden with a host of social narratives, preconceptions, and prejudices. But beyond even that, these developments raise provocative questions about identity and self, birth and death, and force us to ask how mutable the human body really is—and what forms it might take in years to come.

How to Make a Human

How to Make a Human
Author: Karl Steel
Publisher: Interventions: New Studies Med
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780814211571

How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages tracks human attempts to cordon humans off from other life through a wide range of medieval texts and practices, including encyclopedias, dietary guides, resurrection doctrine, cannibal narrative, butchery law, boar-hunting, and teratology. Karl Steel argues that the human subjugation of animals played an essential role in the medieval concept of the human. In their works and habits, humans tried to distinguish themselves from other animals by claiming that humans alone among worldly creatures possess language, reason, culture, and, above all, an immortal soul and resurrectable body. Humans convinced themselves of this difference by observing that animals routinely suffer degradation at the hands of humans. Since the categories of human and animal were both a retroactive and relative effect of domination, no human could forgo his human privileges without abandoning himself. Medieval arguments for both human particularity and the unique sanctity of human life have persisted into the modern age despite the insights of Darwin. How to Make a Human joins with other works in critical animal theory to unsettle human pretensions in the hopes of training humans to cease to project, and to defend, their human selves against other animals.

Making Work Human: How Human-Centered Companies are Changing the Future of Work and the World

Making Work Human: How Human-Centered Companies are Changing the Future of Work and the World
Author: Eric Mosley
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1260464210

How do you keep your employees engaged, creative, innovative, and productive? Simple: Work human! From the pioneers of the management strategy that’s transforming businesses worldwide, Making Work Human shows how to implement a culture of performance and gratitude in the workplace—and seize a competitive edge, increase profitability, and drive business momentum. Leaders of Workhuman, the world’s fastest-growing social recognition and continuous performance management platform, Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine use game-changing data analytics to prove that when a workplace becomes more “human”—when it’s fueled by a culture of gratitude—measurable business results follow. In Making Work Human, they show you how to: Apply analytics and artificial intelligence in ways that make work more human, not less Expand equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives and strategies to include a wider range of backgrounds, life experiences, and capabilities Use recognition as an actionable strategy to create a truly inclusive, connected culture “The qualities that make us most human—connection, community, positivity, belonging, and a sense of meaning—have become the corporate fuel for getting things done—for innovating, for thriving in the global marketplace, and for outperforming the competition,” the authors write. By building a sense of belonging, purpose, meaning, happiness, and energy in every employee, you’ll create a profound connection between your organization and its goals. And Making Work Human provides everything you need to get there.

Catching Fire

Catching Fire
Author: Richard Wrangham
Publisher: Profile Books
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2010-08-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1847652107

In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes". Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. "This notion is surprising, fresh and, in the hands of Richard Wrangham, utterly persuasive ... Big, new ideas do not come along often in evolution these days, but this is one." -Matt Ridley, author of Genome

How Not to Make a Human

How Not to Make a Human
Author: Karl Steel
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2019-12-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 145296002X

From pet keeping to sky burials, a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of and challenge to human particularity in medieval texts Mainstream medieval thought, like much of mainstream modern thought, habitually argued that because humans alone had language, reason, and immortal souls, all other life was simply theirs for the taking. But outside this scholarly consensus teemed a host of other ways to imagine the shared worlds of humans and nonhumans. How Not to Make a Human engages with these nonsystematic practices and thought to challenge both human particularity and the notion that agency, free will, and rationality are the defining characteristics of being human. Recuperating the Middle Ages as a lost opportunity for decentering humanity, Karl Steel provides a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of a wide range of medieval texts. Exploring such diverse topics as medieval pet keeping, stories of feral and isolated children, the ecological implications of funeral practices, and the “bare life” of oysters from a variety of disanthropic perspectives, Steel furnishes contemporary posthumanists with overlooked cultural models to challenge human and other supremacies at their roots. By collecting beliefs and practices outside the mainstream of medieval thought, How Not to Make a Human connects contemporary concerns with ecology, animal life, and rethinkings of what it means to be human to uncanny materials that emphasize matters of death, violence, edibility, and vulnerability.

Does Skill Make Us Human?

Does Skill Make Us Human?
Author: Natasha Iskander
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691217572

Regulation : how the politics of skill become law -- Production : how skill makes cities -- Skill : how skill is embodied and what it means for the control of bodies -- Protest : how skillful practice becomes resistance -- Body : how definitions of skill cause injury -- Earth : how the politics of skill shape responses to climate change.

How to Human

How to Human
Author: Alice Connor
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2019-07-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506449115

Being human is hard. Being a good human is even harder. Practicing kindness, honesty, and self-awareness in the face of doubt, failure, ambiguity, and vulnerability can feel insurmountable. How to Human is here to help. Alice Connor draws on nearly a decade of experience as a college chaplain to provide a tender and irreverent take on one of life's most fundamental questions: how to be a better human in a world dead set against it. Connor offers sage wisdom and no-nonsense realism through real-life examples that strike right at the rashes and rubs of the human experience. She'll take you by the hand, tell you what you need to hear, and encourage you to embrace the chaos. How to Human will help you see life as an experiment--not a quest for the right answers.

Making Human Beings Human

Making Human Beings Human
Author: Urie Bronfenbrenner
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0761927123

This is a book that every developmental psychologist, educator, and public policy person involved with families and education will want Making Human Beings Human represents the culminating work and statement by a towering figure in the field of human development, a statement that will help to shape the future of that field. In particular, it shows the historical development of the bioecological model and the ecology of human development. Featuring contributions and commentary by distinguished scholars, Making Human Beings Human is rich in cultural and historical comparisons. The concepts of the bioecological model and the ecology of human development represent a unique contribution to the field of developmental psychology.