Maureen McNeil – författare

Feminist Cultural Studies of Science and Technology challenges the assumption that science is simply what scientists do, say, or write: it shows the multiple and dispersed makings of science and technology in everyday life and popular culture.

This first major guide and review of the new field of feminist cultural studies of science and technology provides readers with an accessible introduction to its theories and methods. Documenting and analyzing the recent explosion of research which has appeared under the rubric of ''cultural studies of science and technology'' it examines the distinctive features of the ''cultural turn'' in science studies and traces the contribution feminist scholarship has made to this development. Interrogating the theoretical and methodological features it evaluates the significance of this distinctive body of research in the context of concern about public attitudes to science and contentious debates about public understanding of and engagement with science.

Feminist Cultural Studies of Science and Technology challenges the assumption that science is simply what scientists do, say, or write: it shows the multiple and dispersed makings of science and technology in everyday life and popular culture.

This first major guide and review of the new field of feminist cultural studies of science and technology provides readers with an accessible introduction to its theories and methods. Documenting and analyzing the recent explosion of research which has appeared under the rubric of ''cultural studies of science and technology'' it examines the distinctive features of the ''cultural turn'' in science studies and traces the contribution feminist scholarship has made to this development. Interrogating the theoretical and methodological features it evaluates the significance of this distinctive body of research in the context of concern about public attitudes to science and contentious debates about public understanding of and engagement with science.

This book provides an intensive exploration of recent popular representations of human cloning, genetics and the concerns which they generate and mobilise. It is a timely contribution to current debates about the public communication of science and about the cultural and political stakes in those debates. Taking the UK as its main case study, with cross-cultural comparisons with the USA and South Korea, the book explores the proposition that genomics is ‘the publicly mediated science par excellence’, through detailed reference to the rhetoric and images around human reproductive and therapeutic cloning which have proliferated in the wake of the ‘completion’ of the Human Genome Project (2000).

The book offers a set of distinctive analyses of media and cultural texts – including press and television news, Hollywood and independent film drama, documentaries, art exhibits and websites – and in dialogue with the producers and consumers of these texts. From these investigations, key issues are foregrounded: the image of the scientist, scientific expertise and institutions; the governance of science; the representation of women’s bodies as the subjects and objects of biotechnology; and the constitution of publics, both as objects of media debate, and as their intended audience.

This examination demonstrates the importance of mediation, media institutions, and media texts in the production of scientific knowledge. Countering models that see ‘the media’ as simply a channel through which scientific knowledge passes, this book will emphasise the importance of communications technologies in the production of modern scientific knowledge and their particular significance in contemporary genomics. It will argue that human genomic science – and cloning as its current iconic manifestation – has to be understood as a complex cultural production.

This book provides an intensive exploration of recent popular representations of human cloning, genetics and the concerns which they generate and mobilise. It is a timely contribution to current debates about the public communication of science and about the cultural and political stakes in those debates. Taking the UK as its main case study, with cross-cultural comparisons with the USA and South Korea, the book explores the proposition that genomics is ‘the publicly mediated science par excellence’, through detailed reference to the rhetoric and images around human reproductive and therapeutic cloning which have proliferated in the wake of the ‘completion’ of the Human Genome Project (2000).

The book offers a set of distinctive analyses of media and cultural texts – including press and television news, Hollywood and independent film drama, documentaries, art exhibits and websites – and in dialogue with the producers and consumers of these texts. From these investigations, key issues are foregrounded: the image of the scientist, scientific expertise and institutions; the governance of science; the representation of women’s bodies as the subjects and objects of biotechnology; and the constitution of publics, both as objects of media debate, and as their intended audience.

This examination demonstrates the importance of mediation, media institutions, and media texts in the production of scientific knowledge. Countering models that see ‘the media’ as simply a channel through which scientific knowledge passes, this book will emphasise the importance of communications technologies in the production of modern scientific knowledge and their particular significance in contemporary genomics. It will argue that human genomic science – and cloning as its current iconic manifestation – has to be understood as a complex cultural production.

With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, Transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point, and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments.

A thorough reassessment of feminism''s place in contemporary life, the authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalization, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.

With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, Transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point, and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments.

A thorough reassessment of feminism''s place in contemporary life, the authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalization, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.

It is 1962 and Americas greatest sex symbol is ahead of her time. Within the pages of a secret diary she names Red, Marilyn Monroe scribbles her hopes, dreams, and fears, inspired by her aspiration to one day motivate a young person to become something bigger than they ever imagined.

Marilyn begins on January 1 by divulging she has officially given up eating mammals. As she pens her feelings and experiences for the next seven months, the thirty-six-year-old actress shares impressions of dogs and bike rides, memories of married life with DiMaggio and Miller, and reveries of a future with Dreamboat. As she attempts to distinguish friends from enemies while preparing for her last film, Marilyn details her rehearsals for the Happy Birthday performance for JFKs Madison Square Garden celebration, worries about her mothers health, and battles for a million-dollar deal with Twentieth Century Fox. But as Marilyn makes plans to free herself from those she cannot trust, she never imagines what will happen next.

Dear Red shares the fictionalized diary of the brilliantly funny and hardworking artist, Marilyn Monroe, as she lives again, if only to reveal an emotional truth about her death.

Performance artist Anna Magdalena splays her audience open and leaves them begging for more. More life. More freedom. More imagination. By redefining family, history, myth, time and identity, she prompts readers to take action and forge a life of extraordinary beauty. 

Anna Magdalena is a contemporary novel about the power of art, love and imagination in its many forms. Reade Bordeaux, a forty-year-old Seattle plumber, married to Sgt. Becky Smith, is smitten with Anna Magdalena, a New York City performance artist retreated to Willapa, a forgotten Victorian town on the Washington coast. With a snap of her fingers, they land in the New York art world with her acquired family: Saxton, her ex-lover; Lulu, his mother; and Lulu''s partner, Kermit Fleur, an old master dealer who takes Reade under his wing. Honey Dearborn and her son Frank, Reade''s prickly neighbor in Willapa, drive the story with mischief, mystery and good fortune even after their death. But Sgt. Becky Smith has some tricks of her own. While Anna Magdalena provokes audiences with disappearing acts, vows, secrets, and outrageous art pieces that take place on NYC roof tops and beds, Becky pulls a fast one. The whole family rallies around Reade and he is awed as Anna Magdalena clicks her heels.

Tinker Street, the prequel to Anna Magdalena (2022), has arrived from Emperor Books!

Struck by love for a boy as beautiful as a Michelangelo, fifteen year old Maggie digs her heels in. She''s got what Willa Cather called "luck-making power of desire." She''s a rebel in the best sense of the world.

Growing up in Woodstock of the 1990s, the daring performance artist Anna Magdalena is called Maggie. Raised as a "love child" in a communal household in the magic of the Catskills, her mother refuses to reveal her father''s name. Hoping to coax him into plain sight, she performs scenes from King Lear on the town green and exhibits her miniature portraits of townsfolk at the Woodstock library. Strangers approach with details of her birth, claiming her as their own but she''s no fool. Artists she calls fairy godmothers rally around. On her way to New York City, Dylan''s Man in the Long Black Coat appears and the whole wide adult world opens up.