Genetics and the Unsettled Past

KEITH WAILOO is the Townsend Martin Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the author or editor of several books, including Katrina’s Imprint: Race and Vulnerability in America (Rutgers University Press), How Cancer Crossed the Color Line, and Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health.ALONDRA NELSON is an associate professor of sociology at Columbia University. She is the author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination and coeditor of Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life.CATHERINE LEE is an assistant professor of sociology and a faculty associate at the Institute for Health at Rutgers University. She is completing a book entitled Fictive Kin: Family Reunification and the Meaning of Race in Immigration Policy.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Genetic Claims and the Unsettled PastPart I: History, Race, and the Genome Era1. Who Am I? Genes and the Problem of Historical Identity2. Reconciliation Projects: From Kinship to Justice3. The Unspoken Significance of Gender in Constructing Kinship, Race, and NationPart II: Decoding the Genomic Age4. A Biologist's Perspective on DNA and Race in the Genomics Era5. The Dilemma of Classification: The Past in the Present6. The Informationalization of Race: Communication, Databases, and the Digital Coding of the Genome7. Forensic DNA Phenotyping: Continuity and Change in the History of Race, Genetics, and Policing8. Forensic DNA and the Inertial Power of Race in American Legal Practice9. Making History via DNA, Making DNA from History: Deconstructing the Race-Disease Connection in Admixture Mapping10. Waiting on the Promise of Prescribing Precision: Race in the Era of PharmacogenomicsPart III: Stories Told in Blood11. French Families, Paper Facts: Genetics, Nation, and Explanation12. Categorization, Census, and Multiculturalism: Molecular Politics and the Material of Nation13. "It's a Living History, Told by the Real Survivors of the Times--DNA": Anthropological Genetics in the Tradition of Biology as Applied History14. Cells, Genes, and Stories: HeLa's Journey from Labs to Literature15. The Case of the Genetic Ancestor16. Making Sense of Genetics, Culture, and History: A Case Study of a Native Youth Education Program17. Humanitarian DNA Identification in Post-Apartheid South AfricaConclusions: The Unsettled Past18. Forbidden or Forsaken? The (Mis)Use of a Forbidden Knowledge Argument in Research on Race, DNA, and Disease19. Genetic Claims and Credibility: Revisiting History and Remaking RaceContributorsIndex

"This sterling and absolutely needed collection probes the political and historical meanings of DNA, shaping our understanding of human connections and ourselves. Arguing for a multidisciplinary approach to these contentious concerns, this book should be widely read and discussed…a masterpiece."  - Susan M. Reverby (Wellesley College) "Intellectually and analytically strong, this volume comes together in a fluid melding of many different voices and perspectives that, when taken together, provide the richest and best collection of scholarship on the topic." - Troy Duster (author of Backdoor to Eugenics) "Few collections have so successfully straddled the divide between biology and humanities in relation to race. This work will be widely read and cited." - Jay S. Kaufman (McGill University)