The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introducing the New Biosocial Landscape

   • Maurizio Meloni, John Cromby, Des Fitzgerald, Stephanie Lloyd

   Pages 1-22

3. History of the Biology/Society Relationship

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

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   2. Models, Metaphors, Lamarckisms and the Emergence of ‘Scientific Sociology’

      • Snait B. Gissis

      Pages 25-47

   3. The Transcendence of the Social: Durkheim, Weismann and the Purification of Sociology

      • Maurizio Meloni

      Pages 49-76

   4. Biology, Social Science, and Population in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Britain

      • Chris Renwick

      Pages 77-95

   5. The Concept of Plasticity in the History of the Nature-Nurture Debate in the Early Twentieth Century

      • Antonine Nicoglou

      Pages 97-122

   6. An Evolving, Evolutionary Science of Human Differences

      • Jonathan Marks

      Pages 123-141

   7. Experimenting in the Biosocial: The Strange Case of Twin Research

      • William Viney

      Pages 143-166

   8. Histories and Meanings of Epigenetics

      • Tatjana Buklijas

      Pages 167-187

4. Genomics, Postgenomics, Epigenetics and Society

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 189-189

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   2. Scrutinizing the Epigenetics Revolution

      • Maurizio Meloni, Giuseppe Testa

      Pages 191-225

   3. Social and Behavioral Epigenetics: Evolving Perspectives on Nature-Nurture Interplay, Plasticity, and Inheritance

      • Frances A. Champagne

      Pages 227-250

   4. Molecular Multicultures

      • Amy Hinterberger

      Pages 251-268

   5. The First Thousand Days: Epigenetics in the Age of Global Health

      • Michelle Pentecost

      Pages 269-294

   6. Genetics, Epigenetics and Social Justice in Education: Learning as a Complex Biosocial Phenomenon

      • Deborah Youdell

      Pages 295-315

   7. Assembling Biomedical Big Data

      • Sabina Leonelli

      Pages 317-337

5. Neuroscience: Brain, Culture and Social Relations

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 339-339

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   2. Proposal for a Critical Neuroscience

      • Jan Slaby, Suparna Choudhury

      Pages 341-370

   3. On the Neurodisciplines of Culture

      • Fernando Vidal, Francisco Ortega

      Pages 371-390

This comprehensive handbook synthesizes the often-fractured relationship between the study of biology and the study of society. Bringing together a compelling array of interdisciplinary contributions, the authors demonstrate how nuanced attention to both the biological and social sciences opens up novel perspectives upon some of the most significant sociological, anthropological, philosophical and biological questions of our era. 


The six sections cover topics ranging from genomics and epigenetics, to neuroscience and psychology to social epidemiology and medicine. The authors collaboratively present state-of-the-art research and perspectives in some of the most intriguing areas of what can be called biosocial and biocultural approaches, demonstrating how quickly we are moving beyond the acrimonious debates that characterized the border between biology and society for most of the twentieth century. 


This landmark volume will be an extremely valuable resource for scholars and practitioners in all areas of the social and biological sciences.



The chapter 'Ten Theses on the Subject of Biology and Politics: Conceptual, Methodological, and Biopolitical Considerations' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.


Versions of the chapters 'The Transcendence of the Social', 'Scrutinizing the Epigenetics Revolution', 'Species of Biocapital, 2008, and Speciating Biocapital, 2017' and 'Experimental Entanglements: Social Science and Neuroscience Beyond Interdisciplinarity' are available open access via third parties. For further information please see license information in the chapters or on link.springer.com.

• biology and society
• Lamarckisms
• Scientific Sociology
• the nature-nurture debate
• epigenetics
• Social & Behavioral Epigenetics
• Plasticity
• Molecular Multicultures
• social justice in education
• Candomblé Trance
• the maternal capital model
• health in the life course
• postgenomic bodies
• The Postgenomic Politics of Race
• Environmental Epigenetics
• biopolitcs

“This handbook attempts to bridge the traditional gap between social sciences and biological sciences, serving as a comprehensive overview that incorporates both. … This handbook is highly recommended for academic libraries.” (American Reference Books Annual ARBA, June, 2018) “A veritable tour de force, the thirty-seven chapters of a Handbook of Biology and Society delineate an epistemic space for our times among the life sciences and the social sciences. Biological matter is fully social in both form and content and, reciprocally, sociality is enabled and modulated through and through by biology in its many configurations. All traces of dichotomous 20th century debates about biology and society are transcended in the five sections of the handbook that commence with history and culminate in ‘contested sites’ including those of race, gender, and class. No longer can humans be represented as independent of their environments; recognition of the reactive genome has made this evident at the molecular level. These outstanding essays go further, and mesh lived experience with molecular activity, thus fleshing out the mobility of biology and society.” (Margaret Lock PhD,  author of  The Alzheimer’ Conundrum)

• Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

  Maurizio Meloni

• School of Management, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

  John Cromby

• Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

  Des Fitzgerald

• Department of Anthropology, Laval University, Québec, Canada

  Stephanie Lloyd

Maurizio Meloni is a social theorist and a STS scholar at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author of Political Biology, the upcoming A Postgenomic Body and co-editor of Biosocial Matters. 


John Cromby is a psychologist at the University of Leicester, UK. He is a co-author of Psychology, Mental Health and Distress and author of Feeling Bodies: Embodying Psychology. 


Des Fitzgerald is a sociologist and STS scholar at Cardiff University, UK. He is author of Tracing Autism: Uncertainty, Ambiguity and the Affective Labor of Neuroscience and co-author of Rethinking Interdisciplinarity Across the Social Sciences and Neurosciences. 


Stephanie Lloyd is a medical anthropologist at the Université Laval, Canada. Her research examines the production of molecular models that attempt to link early experiences to specific behaviours and traits, with a particular focus on epigenetics and neurosciences.

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