Nikolas Rose
Encyclopedia
Nikolas Rose is a prominent British
sociologist and social theorist. He is currently the James Martin White
Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics
and acting director of LSE's BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society
.
, where he had been Head of the Department of Sociology, Pro-Warden for Research and Head of the Goldsmiths Centre for Urban and Community Research and Director of a major evaluation of urban regeneration in South East London.
Originally trained as a biologist
, he has done extensive work on the history
and sociology
of psychiatry
, on mental health
policy and risk
, and on the social implications of recent developments in psychopharmacology
. He has also published widely on the genealogy of subjectivity
, on the history of empirical thought in sociology, and on changing rationalities of political power. He is particularly known for his interpretation of the work of the French
historian and philosopher Michel Foucault
and the revival of the literature on governmentality
in the Anglo-American world.
His book, Governing the Soul: the shaping of the private self, is widely recognised as one of the founding texts in a new way of understanding and analysing the links between expertise, subjectivity and political power. He argues that the proliferation of the 'psy' disciplines has been intrinsically linked with transformations in governmentality
, in the rationalities and technologies of political power in 'advanced and liberal democracies'. (See also governmentality
for a description of Rose’s interpretations of Foucault’s writings).
For six years he was managing editor of Economy and Society
, one of the UK’s leading interdisciplinary journal of social science, and he is now co-editor of BioSocieties: An interdisciplinary journal for social studies of the life sciences.
He was brought up in London in a Jewish family, the younger brother of Steven Rose
, a prominent British
neuroscientist
.
In 1989, he founded the History of the Present Research Network, an international network of researchers whose work was influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault
. Together with Paul Rabinow
, he edited the Fourth Volume of Michel Foucault
's Essential Works.
In December 2001, he was listed by The Guardian
newspaper as one of the top five UK based social scientists, on the basis of a twenty year analysis of citations to research papers, and the most cited UK based sociologist.
He was awarded in 2007 an ESRC Professorial Research Fellowship - a three year project entitled 'Brain, Self and Society in the 21st Century'.
More recently, the UK's Engineering and Physical Science Research Council has awarded the BIOS centre at the LSE
and Imperial College £8 million to establish the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation, the first publicly-funded UK centre dedicated to synthetic biology
which will be based at Imperial College. Prof. Rose will be heading the team that will examine the social, ethical, legal and political dimensions of this emerging practice and that will train researchers to examine the socio-economic impacts of biotechnology, and developing practices of regulation and good governance.
Nikolas Rose is currently a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
. He was a member of the Council’s Working Party on Medical profiling and online medicine: the ethics of 'personalised healthcare' in a consumer age (2008-2010).
His work has been translated into Swedish
, Danish
, Finnish
, German
, Italian
, French
, Russian
, Chinese
, Japanese
, Romanian
, Portuguese
and Spanish
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
sociologist and social theorist. He is currently the James Martin White
James Martin White
James Martin White was a wealthy Scottish businessman and Liberal Party politician...
Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and acting director of LSE's BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society
BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society
The BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society is an international centre for research and policy on social aspects of the life sciences and biomedicine located at the London School of Economics , England...
.
Life and work
Before joining LSE in 2002 as the Convenor of the Department of Sociology (2002–2006), he was previously Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths CollegeGoldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...
, where he had been Head of the Department of Sociology, Pro-Warden for Research and Head of the Goldsmiths Centre for Urban and Community Research and Director of a major evaluation of urban regeneration in South East London.
Originally trained as a biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
, he has done extensive work on the history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
of psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, on mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
policy and risk
Risk
Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...
, and on the social implications of recent developments in psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology is the scientific study of the actions of drugs and their effects on mood, sensation, thinking, and behavior...
. He has also published widely on the genealogy of subjectivity
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
, on the history of empirical thought in sociology, and on changing rationalities of political power. He is particularly known for his interpretation of the work of the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
historian and philosopher Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
and the revival of the literature on governmentality
Governmentality
Governmentality is a concept first developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in the later years of his life, roughly between 1977 and his death in 1984, particularly in his lectures at the Collège de France during this time...
in the Anglo-American world.
His book, Governing the Soul: the shaping of the private self, is widely recognised as one of the founding texts in a new way of understanding and analysing the links between expertise, subjectivity and political power. He argues that the proliferation of the 'psy' disciplines has been intrinsically linked with transformations in governmentality
Governmentality
Governmentality is a concept first developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in the later years of his life, roughly between 1977 and his death in 1984, particularly in his lectures at the Collège de France during this time...
, in the rationalities and technologies of political power in 'advanced and liberal democracies'. (See also governmentality
Governmentality
Governmentality is a concept first developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in the later years of his life, roughly between 1977 and his death in 1984, particularly in his lectures at the Collège de France during this time...
for a description of Rose’s interpretations of Foucault’s writings).
For six years he was managing editor of Economy and Society
Economy and Society
Economy and Society is a book by political economist and sociologist Max Weber, published posthumously in Germany in 1922 by his wife Marianne. Alongside The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, it is considered to be one of Weber's most important works...
, one of the UK’s leading interdisciplinary journal of social science, and he is now co-editor of BioSocieties: An interdisciplinary journal for social studies of the life sciences.
He was brought up in London in a Jewish family, the younger brother of Steven Rose
Steven Rose
Steven P. Rose is a Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London.-Life:...
, a prominent British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
neuroscientist
Neuroscientist
A neuroscientist is an individual who studies the scientific field of neuroscience or any of its related sub-fields...
.
In 1989, he founded the History of the Present Research Network, an international network of researchers whose work was influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
. Together with Paul Rabinow
Paul Rabinow
Paul Rabinow is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California , Director of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory , and former Director of Human Practices for the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center...
, he edited the Fourth Volume of Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
's Essential Works.
In December 2001, he was listed by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper as one of the top five UK based social scientists, on the basis of a twenty year analysis of citations to research papers, and the most cited UK based sociologist.
He was awarded in 2007 an ESRC Professorial Research Fellowship - a three year project entitled 'Brain, Self and Society in the 21st Century'.
More recently, the UK's Engineering and Physical Science Research Council has awarded the BIOS centre at the LSE
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and Imperial College £8 million to establish the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation, the first publicly-funded UK centre dedicated to synthetic biology
Synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research that combines science and engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a variety of definitions...
which will be based at Imperial College. Prof. Rose will be heading the team that will examine the social, ethical, legal and political dimensions of this emerging practice and that will train researchers to examine the socio-economic impacts of biotechnology, and developing practices of regulation and good governance.
Nikolas Rose is currently a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Nuffield Council on Bioethics
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is a UK-based independent charitable body, which examines and reports on ethical issues raised by new advances in biological and medical research...
. He was a member of the Council’s Working Party on Medical profiling and online medicine: the ethics of 'personalised healthcare' in a consumer age (2008-2010).
His work has been translated into Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
.
Books
- The Psychological Complex: Psychology, Politics and Society in England, 1869-1939 (1985)
- Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (1989, Second edition 1999)
- Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (1996)
- Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (1999)
- The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century (2006)
- Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life, with Peter Miller (2008)
Chapters in edited collections (selected)
- 'Writing the History of the Present', in Jonathan Joseph, ed., Social Theory: A Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005 (with Andrew Barry and Thomas Osborne) (Reprint of selections from Introduction to Foucault and Political Reason, 1996.)
- 'Biological Citizenship', in Aihwa Ong and Stephen Collier, eds., Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, pp. 439–463. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005 (with Carlos Novas)
- Introduction to The Essential Foucault: Selections from Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, New York: New Press, 2004 (with Paul Rabinow)
- 'Becoming Neurochemical Selves', in Nico Stehr, ed., Biotechnology, Commerce and Civil Society, Transaction Press, 2004
- 'The neurochemical self and its anomalies', in R. Ericson, ed., Risk and Morality, pp. 407–437. University of Toronto Press, 2003.
- 'Power and psychological techniques', in Y. Bates and R. House, eds., Ethically Challenged Professions, pp. 27–46. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books, 2003.
- 'Society, madness, and control', in A. Buchanan, ed., The Care of the Mentally Disordered Offender in the Community, pp. 3–25, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2001)
- 'At Risk of Madness', in T. Baker and J. Simon, eds., Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility, pp. 209–237, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2001)
Papers in refereed journals (selected)
- 'Spatial Phenomenotechnics: Making space with Charles Booth and Patrick Geddes', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2004, 22: 209-228 (Thomas Osborne).
- 'Neurochemical selves', Society, November/December 2003, 41, 1, 46-59.
- 'Kontroll', Fronesis, 2003, Nr. 14-15, 82-101.
- 'The politics of life itself', Theory, Culture and Society (2001), 18(6): 1-30.
- 'Genetic risk and the birth of the somatic individual', Economy and Society, Special Issue on configurations of risk (2000), 29 (4): 484-513. (with Carlos Novas).
- 'The biology of culpability: pathological identities in a biological culture', Theoretical Criminology (2000), 4, 1, 5-34.