The trouble with nature [[electronic resource] ] : sex in science and popular culture / / Roger N. Lancaster

• Autore: Lancaster Roger N
• Pubblicazione: Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2003
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (459 p.)
• Disciplina: 306.7
• Soggetto topico: Sex in popular culture; Science news; Pseudoscience; Sexual orientation - Physiological aspects
• Soggetto genere / forma: Electronic books.
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Culture Wars, Nature Wars: A Report from the Front -- Origins Stories -- Adam and Eve Do the Wild Thing: The Science of Desire, the Selfish Gene, and Other Modern Fables -- Venus and Mars at the Fin de Siècle: Evolutionary Psychology and the Modern Art of Spin -- Varieties of Human Nature: The View from Anthropology and History -- Permutations on the "Nature" of Desire: The Gay Brain, the Gay Gene, and Other Tales of Identity -- The Ends of Nature: The Weird Antinomies of Postmodern Mass Culture -- An Open-Ended Conclusion -- Notes -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Roger N. Lancaster provides the definitive rebuttal of evolutionary just-so stories about men, women, and the nature of desire in this spirited exposé of the heterosexual fables that pervade popular culture, from prime-time sitcoms to scientific theories about the so-called gay gene. Lancaster links the recent resurgence of biological explanations for gender norms, sexual desires, and human nature in general with the current pitched battles over sexual politics. Ideas about a "hardwired" and immutable human nature are circulating at a pivotal moment in human history, he argues, one in which dramatic changes in gender roles and an unprecedented normalization of lesbian and gay relationships are challenging received notions and commonly held convictions on every front. The Trouble with Nature takes on major media sources-the New York Times, Newsweek-and widely ballyhooed scientific studies and ideas to show how journalists, scientists, and others invoke the rhetoric of science to support political positions in the absence of any real evidence. Lancaster also provides a novel and dramatic analysis of the social, historical, and political backdrop for changing discourses on "nature," including an incisive critique of the failures of queer theory to understand the social conflicts of the moment. By showing how reductivist explanations for sexual orientation lean on essentialist ideas about gender, Lancaster invites us to think more deeply and creatively about human acts and social relations.
• Titolo autorizzato: The trouble with nature
• ISBN: 1-4175-2263-1; 9786613303936; 1-283-30393-0; 0-520-93679-5
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910450524803321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II