Washington University Press Search Results Page

Botany of Empire

Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism

By Banu Subramaniam

Colonial ambitions spawned imperial attitudes, theories, and practices that remain entrenched within botany and across the life sciences. Banu Subramaniam draws on fields as disparate as queer studies, Indigenous studies, and the biological sciences to...

Capturing Glaciers

A History of Repeat Photography and Global Warming

By Dani Inkpen
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Photographs do not simply speak for themselves. Their meanings are built through interpretive frameworks that shift over time. Today, photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change....

Queer Data Studies

By Patrick Keilty

Data, perilous and powerful, is both a worldmaking and a dismantling force. The collection of data about queer lives and bodies, the consequences of data analysis for queer subjects, and considerations of privacy and consent...

Hacking the Underground

Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System

By Raquel Velho

"Minding the gap" while using a wheelchair on the London Underground goes beyond a sharp eye and careful foot placement to avoid a fall: it can entail carrying and deploying a portable ramp to embark...

Charged

A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future

By James Morton Turner
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

**Finalist for The Cundill History Prize 2023**

To achieve fossil fuel independence, few technologies are more important than batteries. Used for powering zero-emission vehicles, storing electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, and revitalizing the electric...

Inside the World of Climate Change Skeptics

By Kristin Haltinner
Dilshani Sarathchandra

As wildfires rip across the western United States and sea levels rise along coastal cities from Louisiana to Alaska, some people nevertheless reject the mainstream scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. What leads people to...

Oceanographers and the Cold War

Disciples of Marine Science

By Jacob Darwin Hamblin

Oceanographers and the Cold War is about patronage, politics, and the community of scientists. It is the first book to examine the study of the oceans during the Cold War era and explore the international...

Fixing the Image

Ultrasound and the Visuality of Care in Phnom Penh

By Jenna Grant

Introduced in Phnom Penh around 1990, at the twilight of socialism and after two decades of conflict and upheaval, ultrasound took root in humanitarian and then privatized medicine. Services have since multiplied, promising diagnostic information...

The Great Quake Debate

The Crusader, the Skeptic, and the Rise of Modern Seismology

By Susan Hough

In the first half of the twentieth century, when seismology was still in in its infancy, renowned geologist Bailey Willis faced off with fellow high-profile scientist Robert T. Hill in a debate with life-or-death consequences...

Underflows

Queer Trans Ecologies and River Justice

By Cleo Wölfle Hazard

Rivers host vibrant multispecies communities in their waters and along their banks, and, according to queer-trans-feminist river scientist Cleo Wölfle Hazard, their future vitality requires centering the values of justice, sovereignty, and dynamism. At the...

Bad Dog

Pit Bull Politics and Multispecies Justice

By Harlan Weaver

Fifty-plus years of media fearmongering coupled with targeted breed bans have produced what could be called "America’s Most Wanted" dog: the pit bull. However, at the turn of the twenty-first century, competing narratives began to...

Holy Science

The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism

By Banu Subramaniam

Behind the euphoric narrative of India as an emerging world power lies a complex and evolving relationship between science and religion. Evoking the rich mythology of comingled worlds where humans, animals, and gods transform each...

Molecular Feminisms

Biology, Becomings, and Life in the Lab

By Deboleena Roy

"Should feminists clone?" "What do neurons think about?" "How can we learn from bacterial writing?" These and other provocative questions have long preoccupied neuroscientist, molecular biologist, and intrepid feminist theorist Deboleena Roy, who takes seriously...

Woke Gaming

Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice

By Kishonna L. Gray, David J. Leonard

From #Gamergate to the 2016 election, to the daily experiences of marginalized perspectives, gaming is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression. Whether visible in the persistent color line that shapes the production,...

Gender before Birth

Sex Selection in a Transnational Context

By Rajani Bhatia

In the mid-1990s, the international community pronounced prenatal sex selection via abortion an "act of violence against women" and "unethical." At the same time, new developments in reproductive technology in the United States led to...

Queer Feminist Science Studies

A Reader

By Cyd Cipolla, Kristina Gupta, David A. Rubin, Angela Willey

Queer Feminist Science Studies takes a transnational, trans-species, and intersectional approach to this cutting-edge area of inquiry between women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and science and technology studies (STS). The essays here "queer"—or denaturalize and...

High

Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users

By Ingrid Walker

Whether drinking Red Bull, relieving chronic pain with oxycodone, or experimenting with Ecstasy, Americans participate in a culture of self-medication, using psychoactive substances to enhance or manage our moods. A "drug-free America" seems to be...

Reinventing Hoodia

Peoples, Plants, and Patents in South Africa

By Laura A. Foster

Native to the Kalahari Desert, Hoodia gordonii is a succulent plant known by generations of Indigenous San peoples to have a variety of uses: to reduce hunger, increase energy, and ease breastfeeding. In the global...

Risky Bodies & Techno-Intimacy

Reflections on Sexuality, Media, Science, Finance

By Geeta Patel

Risky Bodies and Techno-Intimacy traverses disparate and uncommon routes to explore how people grapple with the radical uncertainties of their lives. In this edgy, evocative journey through myriad interleaved engagements—including the political economies of cinema;...

Network Sovereignty

Building the Internet across Indian Country

By Marisa Elena Duarte

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly determined that affordable Internet access is a human right, critical to citizen participation in democratic governments. Given the significance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to social and...