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Trauma is associated with the appearance of the concept of 'accident' as a social and legal entity, as well as with the successive discoveries of surgery, psychiatrics, and psychoanalysis. Today, epigenetics has redefined trauma as an extreme form of social adversity. Because of the exceptional nature of the events studied and also the social and political significance of its results, the social epigenetics of historical trauma has received undeniable public success. The present article investigates the general dynamics of this research front, as well as the forms and consequences of its public circulation. We highlight the specificity of the circulation modes associated with social epigenetics and the myriad ways it has been used socially and politically. This study addresses four registers of action in particular: to attest, to repair, to intervene, and to text. The social circulation of the epigenetics of trauma is as influenced by the public's willingness to see it as socially and politically relevant as it is by the ability of researchers to prepare this collective appropriation through different forms of public engagement. Finally this study allows us to refute the dichotomic conception of the genetics/epigenetics relationship, which is too frequently the foundation for making epigenetics academically acceptable in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social epigenetics – the study of the epigenetic mechanisms through which social environments become biologically embodied – epitomizes recent claims that the boundaries between the natural and the social sciences should be reduced. Relying on a bibliometric study and on a qualitative analysis of publications in social epigenetics, this article investigates how this research area defines and operationalizes the social dimensions that may have an impact on health status and disease risk. The article also addresses how the social sciences engage with social epigenetics. First, the article traces social epigenetics back to five epistemic backgrounds – two in animal research (on social defeat and early-life adversity) and three in human studies (on trauma, early-life nutrition and social adversity over the life-course). Second, it outlines the quest for epigenetic markers of social environments, and the associated expectations and controversies. Third, it analyses the three modes of engagement of the social sciences with human studies in social epigenetics: rejection (social epigenetics trapped in the quest for a 'social brain'); warning and call for responsibility (social epigenetics has shifted from socioeconomic contexts to individual behaviors); and support and active contribution (social epigenetics may strengthen social studies of health). This article argues that recent developments in social epigenetics could strengthen this third mode of engagement and expand the scope of interdisciplinary collaboration between the natural and the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an exploratory study aimed at translating concepts developed in the frame of commercial entrepreneurship studies to the university setting. Analogy is used in a particular manner that is to look for structural similarities between commercial entrepreneurship and the way knowledge is created and organized. The first step is to introduce the notion of academic opportunity. This becomes the basis for opening up a new perspective by introducing a new discourse in the practice of entrepreneurship, the academic discourse. The next step is to discuss the role of academic networks and their possible connections with the network approach in the business formation. The final part of the article contains three examples illustrating the notions introduced and discussed in the previous sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]