Nikolas Rose is the James Martin White Professor of Sociology, and the Director of the LSE's BIOS| Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society, founded in 2003. He joined LSE in 2002, and from 2002 to 2006 he was Convenor of the Department of Sociology.
He was previously Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, 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.
He was originally trained as a biologist before switching to psychology and then to sociology. 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 and together with Paul Rabinow, he recently edited the Fourth Volume of Michel Foucault's Essential Works.
From 1996 to 2004 he was managing editor of Economy and Society, one of Britain's leading scholarly interdisciplinary journals of social sciences. He edits a Cambridge University Press book series on Society and the Life Sciences (with Professor Paul Rabinow of University of California, Berkeley), and is co-editor (with Professor Anne Harrington of Harvard University) of BioSocieties: an interdisciplinary journal for social studies of neuroscience, genomics and the life sciences published for the LSE by CUP from 2006.
Nikolas Rose has published widely on the social and political history of the human sciences, on the genealogy of subjectivity, on the history of empirical thought in sociology, and on changing rationalities and techniques of political power, and he has also published in law and criminology.
His books include The Psychological Complex: Psychology, Politics and Society in England, 1869-1939 (Routledge, 1984), Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (Routledge, 1989, Second Edition, Free Association Press, 1999), Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and The Politics of Life Itself : Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2006). His work has been translated into Swedish, Finnish, Danish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Romanian, Portuguese and Spanish.
His current research concerns biological and genetic psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience, and its social, ethical, cultural and legal implications. This is the topic of a three year ESRC funded Professorial Research Fellowship and a linked programme of research.
The research programme focuses on the political, social, legal and economic implications of recent developments in the brain sciences and neurotechnologies, and the concomitant changes in ideas about normality and abnormality, in the distinction between cure and enhancement, and in the borderlines between illness and health. In particular, the research examines the emergence of novel ways for the government of human mental life and conduct and their consequences.
Nikolas Rose was lead partner in BIONET, a 21 partner consortium, funded by the European Commission from 3006 to 2009, examining the ethical governance of research in the life sciences in China and Europe http://www.bionet-china.org/|. He is the lead investigator from the LSE in the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CSynBI), a major joint research centre between LSE and Imperial College, London to develop world-leading research and build UK capacity in the emerging field of synthetic biology in a manner that is fully engaged with the social, political and ethical implications of such work http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/synbio/synbio.htm|. He is a member of numerous advisory groups including the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and the Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Strategy Committee. He is Chair of the European Neuroscience and Society Network http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/ENSN/|, Visiting Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Durham Institute of Advanced Study.
Professor Rose is Co-Editor of BioSocieties|.
Brain, Self and Society in the 21st century
|The social and political implications of the 'new brain sciences'
"The aim of the research project is to evaluate the hypothesis that the emerging field of 'the new brain sciences' is having as significant a social, political and personal impact in the 21st century as did the birth of psychological conceptions of personhood and their associated ways of thinking and acting in the 20th century."
Nikolas Rose, 2007
BSS is a three-year project located within the BIOS Centre at LSE and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Its goal is to map the social and political impacts the 'new brain sciences' are having on our understanding of selfhood, personhood, and identity and with what consequences and implications.
Selected publications
SOLE AUTHORED BOOKS
The Politics of Life Itself, Princeton University Press (2007)
Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge University Press (1999)
Governing the Soul (Second edition with new Preface and Afterword), Free Associations Books (1999)
Inventing Our Selves, Cambridge University Press (1996)
The Psychological Complex, Routledge (1985)
CO-EDITED BOOKS
Foucault and Political Reason, UCL Press (1996) with Andrew Barry and Thomas Osborne
The Power of Psychiatry, Polity (1986) with Peter Miller
BOOK CHAPTERS
Normality and pathology in a biomedical age, in B. Carter and N. Charles, eds. Nature, Society and Environmental Crisis, pp. 66-83, Wiley-Blackwell, March 2010.
The somatic ethic and the spirit of biocapital, in J. Yorke, Ed. The Right to Life and the Value of Life Orientations in Law, Politics and Ethics, Ashgate, July 2010.
Governing (In)security, in Patricia Purtschert, Katrin Meyer, Yves Winter, eds.
"Gouvernementalität und Sicherheit. Zeitdiagnostische Beiträge im Anschluss an Foucault (with Filippa Lenzos), 2008.
"Was ist Leben? - Versuch einer Wiederbelebung"(What is life – revitalized, in German Translation), in M. Weiss, ed., Die menschliche Natur im Zeitalter ihrer technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (Human Nature in the Age of Biotechnology), Suhrkamp, 2008.
Commerce vs. The Commons: Conflicts over the commercialisation of biomedical knowledge, in Saw Swee-Hock and Danny Quah, eds., The Politics of Knowledge, Singapore: ISEAS Press, 2009.
'La muerte de lo social' Refigurando el territorio del gobierno, in Nattie Golubov and Rodrigo Parrini, eds., Lost Contordos del Mundo: globalzacion, subjetividad y cultura, pp. 145-191, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoima de Mexico, 2009.
Psycho-Pharmaceuticals In Europe. in Martin Knapp, David McDaid, Elias Mossialos and Graham Thornicroft (eds), Mental Health Policy and Practice across Europe, pp. 146-187. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 2007.
Susceptibility as a Form of Life: Genetic Testing, Susceptibility and the Remit of Medicine, in Regula Valeri Burri and Joseph Dumit, eds., Biomedicine as Culture, pp. 141-150. London: Routledge, 2007.
Governing the Will in a Neurochemical Age, in Sabine Massen and Barbara Sutter, eds. On Willing Selves. Neoliberal Politics and the Challenge of Neursoscience, pp. 81-99. Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Government and control, In J. Muncie, ed., Criminal Justice and Crime Control, London: Sage, 2007 (reprint of paper of 2000).
The death of the social? Refiguring the territory of government (excerpts) in Ritu Vij, ed. Globalization and Welfare: A Critical Reader, London: Palgrave, 2005 (reprint of paper of 1996)
The death of the social? Refiguring the territory of government, in Roger Cotterrell, ed. Law and Social Theory, pp. 395-424. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006 (Reprint of paper of 1996)
The Politics of Life Itself, in Nanneke Redclift and Sahra Gibbon, eds., Genetics: Critical Concepts in Social and Cultural Theory, London: Routledge, 2006 (Reprint of paper of 2001).
Governing 'Advanced' Liberal Democracies, in A. Gupta and A. Sharma, The Anthropology of the State: A Reader, pp. 000-000. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006 (reprint of Chapter of 1996 in Foucault and Political Reason).
Unreasonable rights: mental illness and the limits of the law, in J. Peay, ed., Seminal Issues in Mental Health Law, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006 (reprint of paper of 1985).
Beyond the public/private division: Law, power and the family, International Library of Essays in Law and Society, Ashgate, 2006 (reprint of paper of 1987).
'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, Embracing Risk, pp. 209-237, Chicago: Chicago University Press (2001)
Community, Citizenship and 'The Third Way', in D. Meredyth and J. Minson, eds., Citizenship and Cultural Policy, London, Sage (2000)
Governing Cities, Governing Citizens, in E. Isin, ed., Democracy, Citizenship and the City: Rights to the Global City, pp. 95-109, Routledge (2000)
Government and control, In D. Garland and C. Sparks, eds., Criminology and Social Theory, pp. 183-208, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)
Assembling the modern self, in R. Porter, ed., The History of the Self, pp. 224-248, London, Routledge (1996)
Governing 'advanced' liberal democracies, in A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose, eds., Foucault and Political Reason, pp. 37-64, London, UCL Press (1996)
Identity, Genealogy, History, in S. Hall and P. du Gay., eds., Questions of Cultural Identity, pp. 128-151, London, Sage (1996)
Authority and the genealogy of subjectivity, in P. Heelas, S. Lash and P. Morris, eds., Detraditionalization: Critical reflections on authority and identity, pp.294-327, Oxford, Blackwell (1996)
ARTICLES
Political power beyond the state: problematics of government, (with P. Miller), British Journal of Sociology, 2010, 61, s1, 271-303 (reprint of paper of 1992).
Screen and Intervene: Governing Risky Brains, History of the Human Sciences, Special Issue on the new brain sciences, 2010, 23 (1): 79-105.
The Birth of the Neuromolecular gaze, History of the Human Sciences, Special Issue on the new brain sciences, 2010, 23 (1): 11 - 36. (with Joelle Abi-Rached, who is the first author on this paper)
Governing Insecurity: Contingency Planning, Protection, Resilience, Economy and Society, 2009 , 38 (2): 230-254 (with Filippa Lentzos).
Biomarkers in Psychiatry, Nature, 2009, 406: 202-207 (with Ilina Singh)
The somatic ethic and the spirit of biocapital, Daedalus Winter 2008, 36-48.
Populating Sociology: Carr-Saunders and the problem of population, Sociological Review, 2008, 56 (4): 552-578.
Psychology as a social science, Subjectivity, 2008 (23): 1 – 17
Psicologia como uma Ciência Social, Psicologia et Sociodade 2008, 20 (2): 155-164 (Argentina)
Race, risk and medicine in the age of "your own personal genome", BioSocieties, 2008, 3(4): 425-441.
La muerta de lo social? Reconfiguracion del territorio del gobierno, Revista argentina de socioligia, 2007, 5 (8): 111-150.
Foucault, Laing et le pouvoir psychiatrique (Foucault, Laing and psychiatric power) Sociologie et sociétés, 2007, 18 (2): 113-131.
Molecular Biopolitics, Somatic Ethics and the Spirit of Biocapital, Social Theory and Health, 2007, 5 (1): 3-29..
Pharmacogenomics in psychiatry: social and ethical aspects, Psychiatry, 2007, 6 (2): 80-82.
Beyond medicalisation, The Lancet, 2007, 369: 700-01.
Terapia y poder: techné y ethos, Archipiélago, 2007, 76: 101-124.
Biopower today, BioSocieties, 2006, 1 (2): 195 – 218. (with Paul Rabinow).
O concepto de biopoder hoje, Política & Trabalho, 2006, 24: 27-57. Brazilian translation of Biopower today, (with Paul Rabinow).
Governmentality, Annual Review of Law and Society 2006, 2: 83-104 (with Pat O'Malley and Mariana Valverde).
Disorders Without borders? The expanding scope of psychiatric practice, BioSocieties: an interdisciplinary journal for social studies of life sciences, 2006, 1(4): 465-484.
Disturbi senza confini? L'ambito sempre piu allargarto della practica psichiatrica, Rivesta Sperimentale di Freniatria, 2007, 132 (1), 101-126. (Italian translation of Disorders without Borders, 2006).
Politica vieţii īnseşi, tr. Ciprian Mihali, IDEA: Arts and Society, 20, 2005: 189-199 (Romanian translation of 'The Politics of Life itself')
In search of certainty: risk management in a biological age, Journal of Public Mental Health, 2005, 4, 3: 14-22
The pharmacogenomics of depression: mapping the social and ethical impact, Journal of Public Mental Health, Special Issue on 'Biomedicine and bioscience: implications for public mental health?', 2005 (with Michael Barr and Ilina Singh)
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.
Do the social sciences create phenomena: the case of public opinion research|, British Journal of Sociology (1999), 50, 3, 367-396. (with Thomas Osborne)
Mobilising the consumer: assembling the subject of consumption|, Theory, Culture and Society (1997), 14, 1, 1-36 (with P. Miller).
The death of the social? Refiguring the territory of government, Economy and Society (1996), 25, 3, 327-356
ONLINE MATERIALS
Governing at a Distance: Some Modest Thoughts on Information Technology, Democracy and Security, Part of the i-Studio 5 Seminars - series two (18 March 2003).
Political Power Beyond The State: Problematics of Government|, British Journal of Sociology (1992), 43(2): 172-205.
Power and Subjectivity: Critical History and Psychology|
Power in Therapy: Techne and Ethos|
Biopower today| (with Paul Rabinow), Vital Politics: Health, Medicine and Bioeconomics into the Twenty First Century, London School of Economics, 5-7 September 2003.
Fetishism and ideology: a review of theoretical problems|, Ideology and Consciousness, 1977, 2, 27 - 56.
The psychological complex: mental measurement and social administration|, Ideology and Consciousness, 1979, 5, 5 - 68
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