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Laboratory

By Dr. or Prof. Emily York
Series: Object Lessons
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Brief Description
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The laboratory stands as a powerful symbol in the public imagination: it is a place for bodily dissections and monstrous creations, technological innovation and corporate secrecy, governments working in... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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Emily York delves into the fraught meaning and place of the laboratory in the cultural imagination, both as a powerful symbol of science and progress and as a rapidly evolving political space.

Emily York delves into the fraught meaning and place of the laboratory in the cultural imagination, both as a powerful symbol of science and progress and as a rapidly evolving political space.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

The laboratory stands as a powerful symbol in the public imagination: it is a place for bodily dissections and monstrous creations, technological innovation and corporate secrecy, governments working in the public interest or government out of bounds, scientists as geniuses and saviours and evildoers, learning spaces from the 9th grade biology lab to the San Francisco Exploratorium, and more. But what actually happens in a laboratory, why does it have such fraught connections to our hopes and fears, and how does a laboratory relate to the ‘real world’?

Quintessentially associated with the scientific revolution, the laboratory came to be a space to study ‘facts’ as natural phenomena, isolated and separated from emotions and biases. Yet the laboratory is also intertwined with the messy ambiguity of the world and embodies the power and privilege of resources, expertise, and innovation.

Laboratory examines the contemporary laboratory and its relation to a host of existential concerns about science, technology, and the environment.

Series: Object Lessons

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    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. Bicycle by...
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  • Rust
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It’s happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidised substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel Rabaté combines art, science, and autobiography to share his...
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  • Bookshelf
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Every shelf is different, and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop, while another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. Bookshelf by writer and historian Lydia Pyne explores these differences...
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    By Carol J. Adams
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  • Cigarette Lighter
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors… The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem...
    By Jack Pendarvis
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  • Earth
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. In Earth, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a “blue marble,” “a blue pale dot,” or, as Chaucer described it, “this litel spot of erthe,” the...
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  • Egg
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book is about a strange object—strange in part because it is something that we all have been, and that many of us eat. Nicole Walker's Egg relishes in sharp juxtapositions of seemingly fanciful or repellent topics, so that reproductive science and gustatory...
    By Dr. Nicole Walker
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  • Eye Chart
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Desert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars. But we have since created more disquieting ways to test the strength of the eyes. Reading the eye chart is an exercise in failure, since it only gets interesting when you cannot...
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  • High Heel
    Best Fifteen Books of March 2019, Refinery29Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, Paste Magazine Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Fetishized, demonized, celebrated, and outlawed, the high heel is central to the iconography of modern womanhood. But are high heels good? Are they feminist? What does it mean for a...
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  • Hood
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. We all wear hoods: the Grim Reaper, Red Riding Hood, torturers, executioners and the executed, athletes, labourers, anarchists, rappers, babies in onesies, and anyone who’s ever grabbed a hoodie on a chilly day. Alison Kinney’s Hood explores the material and symbolic vibrancy of...
    By Alison Kinney
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  • Jet Lag
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Jet lag is a momentary condition resulting from the human body and its inner clock being pitched against the time-leaping effects of modern aviation. But more than that, it is a situation that explains time, technology, and the human body. Jet lag epitomises...
    By Dr. Christopher J. Lee
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  • Mushroom
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. They are the things we step on without noticing and the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. They are grouped with plants, but they behave more like animals. In their inscrutability, mushrooms are wondrous organisms. The...
    By Dr. Sara Rich
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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9798765121863

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 29 October 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Contributors:

  • Series edited by Dr. Christopher Schaberg
  • Series edited by Professor Ian Bogost

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 121.0mm

Height: 165.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 168

Collections

Dr. or Prof. Emily York Education & Reference General Fiction Non-Fiction Philosophy & Psychology Philosophy & Stoicism Sci-Fi & Fantasy Science & Nature Science Fiction Series: Object Lessons

About the Author

Emily York is an Associate Professor in the School of Integrated Sciences at James Madison University in Virginia, United States, where she teaches courses in holistic problem solving and in the social, ethical, and legal dimensions of science and technology. She has served as an Associate Editor for Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. Her work has appeared in NanoEthics, Configurations, Journal of Responsible Innovation, Engineering Studies, Journal of Integrated Global STEM, Teaching Ethics, and Science and Engineering Ethics.

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