Between 1878 and 1881, Standish O’Grady published a three-volume History of Ireland that simultaneously recounted the heroic ancient past of the Irish people and helped to usher in a new era of cultural revival and political upheaval. At the heart of this history was the figure of Cuculain, the great mythic hero who would inspire a generation of writers and revolutionaries, from W. B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory to Patrick Pearse. Despite the profound influence O’Grady’s writin...

"This is a brilliant work of lasting value to both sociology and anthropology by a person combining the talent of keen observer with the highest level of theoretical sophistication. . . a major contribution to our understanding of the nature and structure of a significant social situation."--David M. Schneider, The University of Chicago. Experiment Perilous covers a three-year period In the lives of the patients and physicians in a small and intense hospital community. It represents a pion...

In the Field, by Renee C. Fox, is a narrative account of the author's life as a sociologist. It is not a memoir in the conventional sense; rather, it is an ethnographic autobiography. Drawing on a vast reservoir of notes and documents that chronicle the span of her career, this work also focuses on the places Fox's field research has carried her.Propelled by a conviction to move beyond the boundaries of herself and of her native land, Fox has done first-hand research in Europe, Central Afr...

Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America's premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and...

Observing Bioethics examines the history of bioethics as a discipline related not only to modern biology, medicine, and biotechnology, but also to the core values and beliefs of American society and its courts, legislatures, and media. The book is written from the perspective of two social scientists--a sociologist of medicine(Renee C. Fox) and a historian of medicine (Judith P. Swazey)--who have participated in bioethics since the emergence of this multidisciplinary field more than 30 yea...

Observing Bioethics examines the history of bioethics as a discipline related not only to modern biology, medicine, and biotechnology, but also to the core values and beliefs of American society and its courts, legislatures, and media. The book is written from the perspective of two social scientists--a sociologist of medicine(Renee C. Fox) and a historian of medicine (Judith P. Swazey)--who have participated in bioethics since the emergence of this multidisciplinary field more than 30 yea...

Winner, 2025 Sonya Rudikoff Award for the best first book in Victorian StudiesHonorable Mention, 2023 North American Victorian Studies Association First Book PrizeHonorable Mention, American Council for Irish Studies Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First BookThe Necromantics dwells on the literal afterlives of history. Reading the reanimated corpses—monstrous, metaphorical, and occasionally electrified—that Mary Shelley...

Spare Parts examines major developments in the field of organ replacement that occurred in the United States over the course of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. It focuses upon significant medical and social changes in the transplantation of human organs and on the development and clinical testing of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, with special emphasis on how these biomedical events were related to the political, economic, and social climate of American society.Pa...

"Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist" is a book of thematically interconnected ethnographic essays by the internationally esteemed sociologist Renée C. Fox, who employs a participant observer outlook to provide unique insight on such enduring—and pressing—issues as the lived experiences of physicians and patients, including patients who are physically challenged, elderly, mortally ill or beyond the reach of medical care; the origins and consequences of epidemic outbreaks of old an...

When the author’s aging body and the post-polio symptoms it was manifesting made it impossible for her to undertake the physically strenuous ethnographic research in the array of American, European, African and Asian settings that underlay her book Doctors Without Borders and characterized her research throughout her career, she began writing ethnographic essays, drawing from a range of things she was seeing, experiencing, thinking and feeling at this juncture in her life.Among the...

When the author’s aging body and the post-polio symptoms it was manifesting made it impossible for her to undertake the physically strenuous ethnographic research in the array of American, European, African and Asian settings that underlay her book Doctors Without Borders and characterized her research throughout her career, she began writing ethnographic essays, drawing from a range of things she was seeing, experiencing, thinking and feeling at this juncture in her life.Among the...

Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies begins with the reversal in Irish fortunes after the 2008 global economic crash. The chapters included address not only changes in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland but also changes in disciplinary approaches to Irish Studies that the last decade of political, economic, and cultural unrest have stimulated.Since 2008, Irish Studies has been directly and indirectly influenced by the crash and its reverberations through the economy, p...