Alondra Nelson

Genetics and the Unsettled Past considers the alignment of genetic science with commercial trends in genealogy, with legal and forensic developments, and with pharmaceutical innovation to examine how these trends lend renewed authority to biological understandings of race and history.  Essays by scholars across a wide range of disciplines—biology, history, cultural studies, law, medicine, anthropology, ethnic studies, sociology—explore the emerging and often contested connections among race, DNA, and history.

Essays explore a range of topics that include drug development and the production of race-based therapeutics, the ways in which genetics could contribute to future health disparities, the social implications of ancestry mapping, and the impact of emerging race and genetics research on public policy and the media.