Bio

Jain is an award-winning author and Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, Visiting Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’ College London, and a Research Affiliate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg. His work aims to unsettle some of the deeply held assumptions about objectivity that underlie the history of medical research. Jain is the author of Injury (Princeton UP: 2006); Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us (UC Press: 2013); and a book of drawings, Things that Art: A Graphic Menagerie of Enchanting Curiosity (U of Toronto Press: 2019).

Jain is currently working on two books. The first, supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, develops the concept of The WetNet, which refers to fluid bonding among humans and animals in ways that create pathways for the transmission of pathogens. Specifically, mid-century bioscientific practices such as blood harvesting and transfusion, and vaccine development and testing involved exchanges in human and animal effluvia, the risks of which have largely been disavowed. Jain’s current book project elucidates the concept of The WetNet through a rigorous history of the hepatitis B virus and the development of the first hepatitis B vaccine.

The second project, “The Lung is a Bird and a Fish,” is a cultural history of drowning in prose and drawing.

Academic Appointments

  • Professor, Anthropology

Administrative Appointments

  • Professor, Stanford University, Department of Anthropology (2019 - Present)
  • Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law (1999 - 2000)
  • Fellow, Clayman Institute for Gender Research (2012 - 2013)
  • Fellow, Stanford Center for the Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences (2011 - 2011)
  • Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (2010 - 2010)
  • Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center (2009 - 2009)
  • Rockefeller Fellowship, National Humanities Center (2005 - 2005)
  • Fellow, Program on Urban Studies, Stanford University (2001 - 2001)
  • Fellowship, Marilyn Yalom Research (2001 - 2001)
  • Post-doctoral Fellowship, Killam Foundation (1999 - 1999)
  • Fellowship, History of Consciousness Board/UC Regents (1995 - 1997)
  • Graduate Fellowship, Rotary International (1990 - 1990)

Honors & Awards

  • Course Development Award, Science, Technology and Society, Stanford University (2012)
  • Course Development Award, Ethics Program, Stanford University (2006)
  • Cultural Horizons Award, Society for Cultural Anthropology (2005)
  • Course Development Award, Ethics Program, Stanford University (2002)
  • Post-doctoral Award, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (1999)
  • Sir James McGill Scholarship, McGill University (1987 - 1989)
  • Faculty Scholar in Philosophy Department, McGill University (1986 - 1989)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Panel Organizer with Sharon Kaufman, International Conference of the Society for Medical Anthropology, Yale University (2009 - 2009)
  • Reviewer, Configurations
  • Reviewer, Isis
  • Reviewer, Medical Anthropology
  • Reviewer, Journal of Consumer Culture
  • Reviewer, Cultural Anthropology
  • Reviewer, American Ethnologist
  • Reviewer, PoLAR
  • Reviewer, City & Society
  • Reviewer, Comparative Studies in Society and History
  • Reviewer, Medical Anthropology Quarterly
  • Reviewer, Rutgers University Press
  • Reviewer, Duke University Press
  • Reviewer, Minnesota University Press
  • Editorial Advisory Board Member, PoLAR (2005 - 2008)
  • Editorial Advisory Board Member, Subjectivities (2008 - 2012)
  • Co-founder, Oxidate Working Group (2007)
  • Board Member, INCITE mobility project, University of Surrey (2001 - 2008)
  • Member, American Anthropological Association (1999)
  • Member, Association of American Studies (1999)
  • Member, Society for the History of Science & Technology (SHOT) (1998)
  • Member, Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) (1998)
  • Undergraduate Pre-Major Advisor, Stanford University
  • Member, Committee on Undergraduate Admissions, Stanford University
  • Member, Executive Committee on The Program for Science and Technology Studies, Stanford University
  • Member, Curriculum Committee, Stanford University

Program Affiliations

  • Science, Technology and Society

Professional Education

  • PhD, University of California at Santa Cruz (1999)
  • MPhil, University of Glasgow (1991)
  • BA, McGill University (1989)

Contact

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 2034

2022-23 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us Jain, S. L. University of California Press. 2013
  • Survival Odds Mortality in Corporate Time CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Jain, S. L. 2011; 52: S45-S55

    View details for DOI 10.1086/656795

    View details for Web of Science ID 000289723000005

  • Medical Time Introduction of Medical Anthropology Quarterly Jain, S. L., Kaufman, S. 2011
  • Loss of Hope in Cancer Litigation Loyola Law Review Jain, S. L. 2011
  • The Mortality Effect: Counting the Dead in the Cancer Trial PUBLIC CULTURE Jain, S. L. 2010; 22 (1): 89-117

    View details for DOI 10.1215/08992363-2009-017

    View details for Web of Science ID 000276343300007

  • Countering Time: The Medical Apology The Subject of Responsibility edited by Sarat, A. Fordham University Press. 2010
  • Be Prepared Against Health edited by Metzl, J., Kirkland, A. NYU Press. 2010
  • The Mortality Effect: Counting the Dead On the Government of Humanity: Environments, Technologies, Rights, and Relief edited by Feldman, I., Ticktin, M. Duke University Press. 2010
  • Surviving Terrorist Cells Academic Medicine Jain, S. L., Herzig, R. 2008
  • What's Random in the Controlled Trial? Report from meeting of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium The Source Jain, S. L. 2008
  • Cancer Butch CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Jain, S. L. 2007; 22 (4): 501-538

    View details for Web of Science ID 000250567700002

  • The medical malpractice myth (Book Review) LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW Book Review Authored by: Jain, S. 2007; 41 (3): 737-738

    View details for Web of Science ID 000249184300007

  • Living in prognosis: Toward an elegiac politics REPRESENTATIONS Lochlann Jain, S. 2007: 77-92

    View details for DOI 10.1525/rep.2007.98.77

    View details for Web of Science ID 000247127400006

  • "A Value to Suffering," Review Essay of Rebecca Herzig's Suffering for Science American Studies Quarterly Jain, S. L. 2007
  • Car Safety: An Anthropological Analysis Safety Culture Jain, S. L. 2007
  • Object Obituary: Starbucks Paper Cup and Plastic Lid Ambidextrous Jain, S. L. 2006
  • "Projectile Economies," Review of the film "Crash," Journal of Transportation History Jain, S. L., Simons, D. 2006
  • Injury: The Politics of Product Design and Safety Law in the United States Jain, S. L. Princeton University Press. 2006
  • Violent submission - Gendered automobility CULTURAL CRITIQUE Jain, S. S. 2005: 186-214

    View details for Web of Science ID 000234361000007

  • Entry for Technology and Gender, Race and Class The Oxford Dictionary of Science, Technology and Society Jain, S. L. Oxford University Press. 2005
  • Come up to the Kool Taste': African American Upward Mobility and the Semiotics of Smoking Menthols Beyond the Frame edited by Davis, A., Tadiar, N. Pergamon Press. 2005
  • Urban Violence: Luxury in Made Space Mobile Technologies of the Future edited by Sheller, M., Urry, J. Taylor and Francis. 2005
  • "Dangerous instrumentality": The bystander as subject in automobility CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Jain, S. S. 2004; 19 (1): 61-94

    View details for Web of Science ID 000220221000003

  • The Italian Tailor's Job Girlfriends Jain, S. L. 2004
  • "Come up to the kool taste": African American upward mobility and the semiotics of smoking menthols PUBLIC CULTURE Jain, S. S. 2003; 15 (2): 295-322

    View details for Web of Science ID 000183068500006

  • Car cultures. (Book Review) AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST Book Review Authored by: Jain, S. S. 2002; 29 (3): 734-735

    View details for Web of Science ID 000178794800019

  • Urban Errands: The Means of Mobility Journal of Consumer Culture Jain, S. L. 2002; 2 (3): 385-404
  • Mysterious delicacies and ambiguous agents: Lennart Nilsson in National Geographic CONFIGURATIONS Jain, S. S. 1998; 6 (3): 373-394

    View details for Web of Science ID 000076206000003

  • Inscription Fantasies and Interface Erotics: Keyboards, Law, Repetitive Strain Injuries Hastings Journal of Women and Law Jain, S. L. 1998; 9 (2): 219-253
  • Prosthetic Pathology: Enabling and Disabling the Prosthesis Trope Science, Technology, and Human Values Jain, S. L. 1998; 24 (1): 31-54
  • Collecting National Geographic Magazine's Collection: Cultural Capital and the Wealth of Nations Frameworks: Communities on Display Jain, S. L. 1995
  • The Republic: A Study of a Tragic Flaw McGill Journal of Political Studies Jain, S. L. 1988; 7: 35-54