
Technicians of Human Dignity
Bodies, Souls, and the Making of Intrinsic Worth
Gaymon Bennett(Author)
Fordham University Press
Will be published approx. on 23. November 2015
Book
Hardback
338 pages
978-0-8232-6777-4 (ISBN)
Description
Technicians of Human Dignity traces the extraordinary rise of human dignity as a defining concern of religious, political, and bioethical institutions over the last half century and offers original insight into how human dignity has become threatened by its own success. The global expansion of dignitarian politics has left dignity without a stable set of meanings or referents, unsettling contemporary economies of life and power.
Engaging anthropology, theology, and bioethics, Bennett grapples with contemporary efforts to mobilize human dignity as a counter-response to the biopolitics of the human body, and the breakdowns this has generated. To do this, he investigates how actors in pivotal institutions -the Vatican, the United Nations, U.S. Federal Bioethics-reconceived human dignity as the bearer of intrinsic worth, only to become frustrated by the Sisyphean struggle of turning its conceptions into practice.
Engaging anthropology, theology, and bioethics, Bennett grapples with contemporary efforts to mobilize human dignity as a counter-response to the biopolitics of the human body, and the breakdowns this has generated. To do this, he investigates how actors in pivotal institutions -the Vatican, the United Nations, U.S. Federal Bioethics-reconceived human dignity as the bearer of intrinsic worth, only to become frustrated by the Sisyphean struggle of turning its conceptions into practice.
Reviews / Votes
"This book is a very timely analysis of the invocation and role of appeals to 'human dignity' in the 20th/21st century." -- -Whitney Bauman Florida International University "Technicians of Human Dignity is an analytical powerhouse; it commands admiration." -- -James Faubion Rice UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
590 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8232-6777-4 (9780823267774)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/2015
1st Edition
Fordham University Press
€46.99
Available for download

E-Book
11/2015
1st Edition
Fordham University Press
€63.99
Available for download
Person
Gaymon Bennett is Assistant Professor of Religion, Science, and Technology at Arizona State University. He is co-author, with Paul Rabinow, of Designing Human Practices: An Experiment with Synthetic Biology and, with Ted Peters and Karen Lebacqz, of Sacred Cells? Why Christians Should Support Stem Cell Research.
Content
Orienting Prologue: From Bioethics to Political Spirituality 1. Figuring Human Dignity I. Human Dignity and the Vatican 2. Human Dignity in the Secular World 3. The Natural and the Supernatural: Human Dignity and the Ontology of the Call II. Human Dignity and the United Nations 4. Incapacity by Design: Politics, Sovereignty, Human Dignity 5. Dignity and Form Diagnostic Excursus: Economies of Life and Power III. Human Dignity & the President's Council on Bioethics 6. Bioethics and the Reconfiguration of Biopolitics 7. Human Dignity and the Biopolitical Pastoral Methodological Epilogue: Toward an Anthropology of Figuration Notes Index