About
I am a historian and sociologist of the modern life sciences after 1850. I study concepts and technologies in microbiology, metabolism, and cell biology, with a focus on biotechnology and the use of living cells and processes for industrial and pharmaceutical production. My collaborative work with life scientists is focused on methodological innovation, using the tools and insights of history and sociology to ask different kinds of biological questions, and vice-versa, bringing biological insights to the framing of historical questions.
Awards
- Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2021-2022
- USC Dornsife Berggruen Fellow, 2018-2019
- Scholar’s Award, American Council of Learned Societies, 2013
- Suzanne J. Levinson Book Award, History of Science Society, 2008
- Scholar’s Award, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2005
Relevant Publications
- Landecker, H. (2023). “The Food of our Food: Medicated Feed and the Industrialization of Metabolism.” pp. 56-85 in H. Paxson, ed. Eating Beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Foods and Bodies, Duke University Press
- Kelty, C., H. Landecker, (2019) “Outside In: Microbiomes, Epigenomes, Visceral Sensing, and Metabolic Ethics.” pp. 53-65 in After Practice: Thinking through Matter(s) and Meaning Relationally, edited by The Laboratory for the Anthropology of the Environment and Human Relations, Berlin: Panama Verlag
- Landecker, H. (2016). “Antibiotic Resistance and the Biology of History.” Body and Society 22(4):19-52. DOI: 10.1177/1357034X14561341
Support Us
CIFAR is a registered charitable organization supported by the governments of Canada, Alberta and Quebec, as well as foundations, individuals, corporations and Canadian and international partner organizations.