Situates contemporary genomics within a history of genetics research yet is attentive to the new ways in which knowledge claims about heredity, race, and gender emerge and are articulated

Winner of the 2014 Diamond Anniversary Book Award
Finalist for the 2014 National Communications Association Critical and Cultural Studies Division Book of the Year Award
In 2000, the National Human Genome Research Institute announced the completion of a “draft” of the human genome, the sequence information of nearly all 3 billion base pairs of DNA. Since then, interest in the hereditary basis of disease has increased considerably. In The Material Gene, Kelly E. Happe considers the broad implications of this development by treating “heredity” as both a scientific and political concept. Beginning with the argument that eugenics was an ideological project that recast the problems of industrialization as pathologies of gender, race, and class, the book traces the legacy of this ideology in contemporary practices of genomics. Delving into the discrete and often obscure epistemologies and discursive practices of genomic scientists, Happe maps the ways in which the hereditarian body, one that is also normatively gendered and racialized, is the new site whereby economic injustice, environmental pollution, racism, and sexism are implicitly reinterpreted as pathologies of genes and by extension, the bodies they inhabit. Comparing genomic approaches to medicine and public health with discourses of epidemiology, social movements, and humanistic theories of the body and society, The Material Gene reworks our common assumption of what might count as effective, just, and socially transformative notions of health and disease.

"[Happes] is a narrative of unbroken continuity between the eugenic bio-racism of old and current genomic research whereby the complex breast cancer experience of black women is reduced to a racial predisposition. Her argument is clear: in her view, the geneticization of breast cancer equals a highly problematic depoliticization of the disease, its etiology and specific forms of progression." - Science as Culture

"Engaging with historical sources as well as current scientific literature, the text explores the potential implications of this discovery for embodied existence as the human body is reconfirmed as a frontier of risk. The result is a valuable piece of work that offers an impressive depth of research and delivers a number of well conveyed and convincing arguments." - Sociology of Health & Illness

"Ever since the Human Genome Project started to take shape in the late 1980s, social inquiry has been concerned with the consequences of the renewed vigor and depth with which biological knowledge has been shaping life itself. Kelly Happe's book, The Material Gene, carries forward this important set of concerns." - New Genetics and Society

"In this ground-breaking book Happe questions whether any science concerned with race and genomics will not reinscribe problematic notions of race... What is eminently clear is thatThe Material Geneis wonderful to think with, and Happe has made a significant contribution to the evolving literature on race, gender, biopolitics, and bioscience, especially in relation to environmental health. I highly recommend the book for the careful read it deserves." - Society and Space