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The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation together fund more than $40 billon of research annually in the United States and around the globe. These large public expenditures come with strings, including a complex set of laws and guidelines that regulate how scientists may use NIH and NSF funds, how federally funded research may be conducted, and who may have access to or own the product of the research.

Until now, researchers have had little instruction on the nature of these laws and how they work. But now, with Robert P. Charrow’s Law in the Laboratory, they have a readable and entertaining introduction to the major ethical and legal considerations pertaining to research under the aegis of federal science funding. For any academic whose position is grant funded, or for any faculty involved in securing grants, this book will be an essential reference manual. And for those who want to learn how federal legislation and regulations affect laboratory research, Charrow’s primer will shed light on the often obscured intersection of government and science.

Drawing on archival materials of twentieth-century biology; little-known works of fiction and science fiction; and twentieth- and twenty-first century U.S. and U.K. government reports by the National Institutes of Health, the Parliamentary Advisory Group on the Ethics of Xenotransplantation, and the President’s Council on Bioethics, she examines a number of biomedical changes as each was portrayed by scientists, social scientists, and authors of fiction and poetry. Among the scientific developments she considers are the cultured cell, the hybrid embryo, the engineered intrauterine fetus, the child treated with human growth hormone, the process of organ transplantation, and the elderly person rejuvenated by hormone replacement therapy or other artificial means. Squier shows that in the midst of new phenomena such as these, literature helps us imagine new ways of living. It allows us to reflect on the possibilities and perils of our liminal lives.

With a backdrop of religious violence and escalating regional tensions in South Asia, Priya Kumar’s Limiting Secularism probes the urgent topic of secularism and tolerance in Indian culture and life. Kumar explores Partition as the founding trauma of the Indian nation-state and traces the consequences of its marking off of “Indian” from “Pakistani” and the positioning of Indian Muslims as strangers within the nation.

Kumar unpacks the implications of the Nehruvian doctrine of tolerance-with all of its resonances of condescension and inequality-and asks whether more ethical cohabitation can replace the “arrogant compulsive tolerance” of the state and the majority. Informed by Jacques Derrida’s recent work on hospitality and living together, Kumar argues for the emergence of an “ethics of coexistence” in Indian fiction and film. Considering narratives ranging from the cosmopolitan English novels of Rushdie and Ghosh to literature in South Asian languages as well as recent Hindi cinema, Kumar demonstrates that these fictions are important resources for reimagining tolerance and coexistence.

Distinctive and timely in its investigation of secularism and communalism, Limiting Secularism works to envision the radical possibilities of going beyond tolerance to living well together.

Priya Kumar is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa. 

The four new essays in Lincoln's Legacy describe major ethical problems that the sixteenth president navigated what can be learned from how he did so. The distinguished and award-winning Lincoln scholars William Miller, Mark E. Neely Jr., Phillip Shaw Paludan, and Mark Summers describe Lincoln’s attitudes and actions during encounters with questions of politics, law, constitutionalism, patronage, and democracy. The remarkably focused essays include an assessment of Lincoln's virtues in the presidency, the first study on Lincoln and patronage in more than a decade, a challenge to the cliché of Lincoln the democrat, and a study of habeas corpus, Lincoln, and state courts. On the eve of the bicentennial celebration of Lincoln’s birth, Lincoln’s Legacy highlights his enduring importance in contemporary conversations about law, politics, and democracy.

Listening to the Whispers gives voice to scholars in philosophy, medical anthropology, physical therapy, and nursing, helping readers re-think ethics across the disciplines in the context of today's healthcare system. Diverse voices, often unheard, challenge readers to enlarge the circle of their ethical concerns and look for hidden pathways toward new understandings of ethics. Essays range from a focus on the context of corporatization and managed care environments to a call for questioning the fundamental values of society as these values silently affect many others in healthcare. Each chapter is followed by a brief essay that highlights issues useful for scholarly research and classroom discussion. The conversations of interpretive research in healthcare contained in this volume encourage readers to re-think ethics in ways that will help to create an ethical healthcare system with a future of new possibilities.

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine

Contributors. Timothy Choy, Joseph Dumit, Michael M. J. Fischer, Kim Fortun, Mike Fortun, Donna Haraway, Sheila Jasanoff, Wen-Hua Kuo, Andrew Lakoff, Kristin Peterson, Chloe Silverman, Elta Smith, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Travis J. Tanner