Alondra Nelson's research interests are in the areas of the sociology of health, illness and the body; the sociology of science, technology and knowledge; social movements and collective action; social stratification (intersections of race, class, and gender); and social and cultural theory. Her research areas include the social, cultural and bioethical implications of genetic science; African American social movements and health activism; race, gender and technology; "race" and racialization in biomedicine and technoculture; futurism and speculative theory; and new media and digital culture. She is the co-editor (with Thuy Linh N. Tu) of Technicolor: Race, Technology and Everyday Life (NYU Press 2001). She is presently expanding a recently edited special issue of Social Text on technologies and black culture, which will be published by Duke University Press as Afrofuturism: Speculative Imagery, Futurist Themes and Technological Innovation in the African Diaspora. Nelson is also at work on a manuscript about late-twentieth African American health advocacy around issues of genetic disease, medicalized models of social unrest, and reproductive rights, as well as a related project on the transformations of individual and group identity attendant to the introduction of commercial genetic technologies for use in tracing human genealogies.

Public Lecture

The Pursuit of African Roots in the Age of Genomics
Thursday, March 31st, 6-7:45 pm, Devlin 101

Seminar

Futurism and Speculative Theory in African American Culture
Friday April 1st

Assigned Seminar Readings:

• "Motion Capture" (PDF, 2.9 MB)
• "Freedom Dreams" (PDF, 12.3 MB)
• "Against Race" (PDF, 12.5 MB)
• "Future Texts" (PDF, 77 KB)