How Not To Make A Human

Author : Karl Steel
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 145296002X
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Not to Make a Human written by Karl Steel and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2019-12-24 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Christopher Potter
Publisher : Fourth Estate
ISBN 13 : 9780007447817
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Make a Human Being written by Christopher Potter and published by Fourth Estate. This book was released on 2015-01-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Potter shows how, at every scale of description, human beings escape the net of scientific reductionism. What it is to be human can be glimpsed in the details: in the opening of a window, in a shared joke. But cannot be caught by any reductive scientific description.

Author : Karl Steel
Publisher : Interventions: New Studies Med
ISBN 13 : 9780814211571
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Make a Human written by Karl Steel and published by Interventions: New Studies Med. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Temple Grandin
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0151014892
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Animals Make Us Human written by Temple Grandin and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2009 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of "Animals in Translation" employs her own experience with autism and her background as an animal scientist to show how to give animals the best and happiest life.

Author : Institute of Medicine
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309068371
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book To Err Is Human written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-03-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts estimate that as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical errors that occur in hospitals. That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDSâ€"three causes that receive far more public attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries. Add the financial cost to the human tragedy, and medical error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent, widespread public problems. To Err Is Human breaks the silence that has surrounded medical errors and their consequenceâ€"but not by pointing fingers at caring health care professionals who make honest mistakes. After all, to err is human. Instead, this book sets forth a national agendaâ€"with state and local implicationsâ€"for reducing medical errors and improving patient safety through the design of a safer health system. This volume reveals the often startling statistics of medical error and the disparity between the incidence of error and public perception of it, given many patients' expectations that the medical profession always performs perfectly. A careful examination is made of how the surrounding forces of legislation, regulation, and market activity influence the quality of care provided by health care organizations and then looks at their handling of medical mistakes. Using a detailed case study, the book reviews the current understanding of why these mistakes happen. A key theme is that legitimate liability concerns discourage reporting of errorsâ€"which begs the question, "How can we learn from our mistakes?" Balancing regulatory versus market-based initiatives and public versus private efforts, the Institute of Medicine presents wide-ranging recommendations for improving patient safety, in the areas of leadership, improved data collection and analysis, and development of effective systems at the level of direct patient care. To Err Is Human asserts that the problem is not bad people in health careâ€"it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be made safer. Comprehensive and straightforward, this book offers a clear prescription for raising the level of patient safety in American health care. It also explains how patients themselves can influence the quality of care that they receive once they check into the hospital. This book will be vitally important to federal, state, and local health policy makers and regulators, health professional licensing officials, hospital administrators, medical educators and students, health caregivers, health journalists, patient advocatesâ€"as well as patients themselves. First in a series of publications from the Quality of Health Care in America, a project initiated by the Institute of Medicine

Author : Jeremy Taylor
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191613584
Total Pages : 395 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Not a Chimp written by Jeremy Taylor and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-05-27 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans are primates, and our closest relatives are the other African apes - chimpanzees closest of all. With the mapping of the human genome, and that of the chimp, a direct comparison of the differences between the two, letter by letter along the billions of As, Gs, Cs, and Ts of the DNA code, has led to the widely vaunted claim that we differ from chimps by a mere 1.6% of our genetic code. A mere hair's breadth genetically! To a rather older tradition of anthropomorphizing chimps, trying to get them to speak, dressing them up for 'tea parties', was added the stamp of genetic confirmation. It also began an international race to find that handful of genes that make up the difference - the genes that make us uniquely human. But what does that 1.6% really mean? And should it really lead us to consider extending limited human rights to chimps, as some have suggested? Are we, after all, just chimps with a few genetic tweaks? Is our language and our technology just an extension of the grunts and ant-collecting sticks of chimps? In this book, Jeremy Taylor sketches the picture that is emerging from cutting edge research in genetics, animal behaviour, and other fields. The indications are that the so-called 1.6% is much larger and leads to profound differences between the two species. We shared a common ancestor with chimps some 6-7 million years ago, but we humans have been racing away ever since. One in ten of our genes, says Taylor, has undergone evolution in the past 40,000 years! Some of the changes that happened since we split from chimpanzees are to genes that control the way whole orchestras of other genes are switched on and off, and where. Taylor shows, using studies of certain genes now associated with speech and with brain development and activity, that the story looks to be much more complicated than we first thought. This rapidly changing and exciting field has recently discovered a host of genetic mechanisms that make us different from other apes. As Taylor points out, for too long we have let our sentimentality for chimps get in the way of our understanding. Chimps use tools, but so do crows. Certainly chimps are our closest genetic relatives. But relatively small differences in genetic code can lead to profound differences in cognition and behaviour. Our abilities give us the responsibility to protect and preserve the natural world, including endangered primates. But for the purposes of human society and human concepts such as rights, let's not pretend that chimps are humans uneducated and undressed. We've changed a lot in those 12 million years.

Author : Alina Tugend
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101486430
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Better By Mistake written by Alina Tugend and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-03-17 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times columnist Alina Tugend delivers an eye-opening big idea: Embracing mistakes can make us smarter, healthier, and happier in every facet of our lives. In this persuasive book, journalist Alina Tugend examines the delicate tension between what we’re told—we must make mistakes in order to learn—and the reality—we often get punished for them. She shows us that mistakes are everywhere, and when we acknowledge and identify them correctly, we can improve not only ourselves, but our families, our work, and the world around us as well. Bold and dynamic, insightful and provocative, Better by Mistake turns our cultural wisdom on its head to illustrate the downside of striving for perfection and the rewards of acknowledging and accepting mistakes and embracing the imperfection in all of us.

Author : J. Allan Mitchell
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452941572
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Becoming Human written by J. Allan Mitchell and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming Human argues that human identity was articulated and extended across a wide range of textual, visual, and artifactual assemblages from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. J. Allan Mitchell shows how the formation of the child expresses a manifold and mutable style of being. To be human is to learn to dwell among a welter of things. A searching and provocative historical inquiry into human becoming, the book presents a set of idiosyncratic essays on embryology and infancy, play and games, and manners, meals, and other messes. While it makes significant contributions to medieval scholarship on the body, family, and material culture, Becoming Human theorizes anew what might be called a medieval ecological imaginary. Mitchell examines a broad array of phenomenal objects—including medical diagrams, toy knights, tableware, conduct texts, dream visions, and scientific instruments—and in the process reanimates distinctly medieval ontologies. In addressing the emergence of the human in the later Middle Ages, Mitchell identifies areas where humanity remains at risk. In illuminating the past, he shines fresh light on our present.

Author : Don Norman
Publisher : Diversion Books
ISBN 13 : 1626815372
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Things That Make Us Smart written by Don Norman and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS. Insightful and whimsical, profoundly intelligent and easily accessible, Don Norman has been exploring the design of our world for decades, exploring this complex relationship between humans and machines. In this seminal work, fully revised and updated, Norman gives us the first steps towards demanding a person-centered redesign of the machines we use every day. Humans have always worked with objects to extend our cognitive powers, from counting on our fingers to designing massive supercomputers. But advanced technology does more than merely assist with memory—the machines we create begin to shape how we think and, at times, even what we value. In THINGS THAT MAKE US SMART, Donald Norman explores the complex interaction between human thought and the technology it creates, arguing for the development of machines that fit our minds, rather than minds that must conform to the machine.

Author : Ed Yong
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062368621
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book I Contain Multitudes written by Ed Yong and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller New York Times Notable Book of 2016 • NPR Great Read of 2016 • Named a Best Book of 2016 by The Economist, Smithsonian, NPR's Science Friday, MPR, Minnesota Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, Times (London) From Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin—a “microbe’s-eye view” of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on earth. Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ed Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light—less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are. The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squid with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people. Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us—the microbiome—build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities. In this astonishing book, Ed Yong takes us on a grand tour through our microbial partners, and introduces us to the scientists on the front lines of discovery. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it.