1. Biology, Violence, and the Continued Debate
2. Finding the "Fit"
3. "Picturing" Risky Brains
4. Beyond Determinism?
5. The Taboo of Race
6. Fixing Violent Brains
7. The Limits of Scientific Conviction
Oliver Rollins is Assistant Professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington.
"With the emergence of fMRI technology in the 1990s,
neuroscientists have attempted to explain violent behavior by
locating specific brainwave activity. However, because of the
fluidity of the boundaries that define "violence," it has been a
bumpy road. With Conviction, Oliver Rollins has made a significant
contribution to explaining why the path has been so
fraught—providing a 'sociology of knowledge' construction that
illuminates how the scaffolding of key concepts have come into
play, and as often, into conflict."—Troy Duster, Chancellor's
Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley
"Oliver Rollins brilliantly probes claims by contemporary
neuroscientists that brain science can investigate racist behavior
divorced from bio-criminology's past promotion of biological
determinism and racist stereotypes. He incisively exposes the
social assumptions embedded in the new neuroscientific model of
violence—the "violent brain"—and shows how researchers' attempts to
ignore race actually help to perpetuate racist myths about
potential criminals. Conviction makes an essential contribution to
our understanding of the promises and pitfalls of biosocial
science."—Dorothy Roberts, author of Fatal Invention
"Conviction is a vital book that pushes social scientific critiques
of neuroscience onto more sophisticated terrain. The biologization
of crime and violence is a seductive and dangerous idea that
scientists cannot seem to resist, even with all its ethical
baggage. Concerned social scientists must meet it with arguments
that are not recycled from the last battle but engage with the
contemporary manifestations of this bad idea."—Owen Whooley, New
Genetics and Society
"Conviction is a fascinating book that addresses core issues in
medical sociology, science studies, the sociology of race,
biopolitics, and the sociology of knowledge.... [W]hat we get here
is a nuanced, deeply researched portrait of a scientific program
that is rife with political problems and uncertainty, wherein
scientists' failed efforts to deal with 'the social' demand that we
pursue bolder sociological engagements with science."—Paige L.
Sweet, American Journal of Sociology
"Rollins's final product is a sensible and respectful critique of
modern neuroscience and its ambition to succeed in proposing a
neutral and complete understanding of violence, where the brain is
both the question and the solution and broader social contingencies
are overlooked altogether. The book spares readers the redundant
free will rhetoric attacking the flaws of biological
determinism—which is very welcome. Instead, it confronts readers
with a paramount limitation of the neuroscience of violence that is
far more concrete, timely, and truly worth of consideration in
interdisciplinary discussions on neuroscience, law, and
society."—Federica Coppola, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice
Books
"Conviction arrives at a timely moment in which controversial
questions surrounding neurological maturity, culpability, and
future dangerousness present immediate concerns in the criminal
justice system.... Rollins' blending of sociological and medical
knowledge makes for a thorough and persuasive argument about the
persistence of colorblind racial logics at the intersection of
neuroscience and criminology."—Ernest K. Chavez, Law & Society
Review
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