The Global Genome : Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture (Hardcover)

Eugene Thacker

  • 出版商: MIT
  • 出版日期: 2005-05-20
  • 售價: $1,320
  • 語言: 英文
  • 頁數: 416
  • 裝訂: Hardcover
  • ISBN: 0262201550
  • ISBN-13: 9780262201551
  • 相關分類: 物聯網 IoT
  • 立即出貨(限量) (庫存=4)

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In the age of global biotechnology, DNA can exist as biological material in a test tube, as a sequence in a computer database, and as economically valuable information in a patent. In The Global Genome, Eugene Thacker asks us to consider the relationship of these three entities and argues that -- by their existence and their interrelationships -- they are fundamentally redefining the notion of biological "life itself."

Biological science and the biotech industry are increasingly organized at a global level, in large part because of the use of the Internet in exchanging biological data. International genome sequencing efforts, genomic databases, the development of World Intellectual Property policies, and the "borderless" business of biotech are all evidence of the global intersections of biology and informatics -- of genetic codes and computer codes. Thacker points out the internal tension in the very concept of biotechnology: the products are more "tech" than "bio," but the technology itself is fully biological, composed of the biomaterial labor of genes, proteins, cells, and tissues. Is biotechnology a technology at all, he asks, or is it a notion of "life itself" that is inseparable from its use in the biotech industry?

The three sections of the book cover the three primary activities of biotechnology today: the encoding of biological materials into digital form -- as in bioinformatics and genomics; its recoding in various ways -- including the "biocolonialism" of mapping genetically isolated ethnic populations and the newly pervasive concern over "biological security"; and its decoding back into biological materiality -- as in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Thacker moves easily from science to philosophy to political economics, enlivening his account with ideas from such thinkers as Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Antonio Negri, and Paul Virilio. The "global genome," says Thacker, makes it impossible to consider biotechnology without the context of globalism.

Eugene Thacker is Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

 

Table of Contents:

 

Series Foreword vii
 
  Forward by Joel Slayton ix
 
  Preface xi
 
  Acknowledgments xiii
 
  Introduction xv
 
I Encoding / Production 1
 
1 The Global Genome 3
 
2 Bioinformatic Bodies and the Problem of "Life Itself" 51
 
3 A Political Economy of the Genomic Body 91
 
II Recoding / Distribution 131
 
4 Biocolonialism, Genomics, and the Databasing of the Population 133
 
5 The Incorporate Bodies of Recombinant Capital 173
 
6 Bioinfowar: Biologically Enhancing National Security 209
 
III Decoding / Consumption 249
 
7 The Thickness of Tissue Engineering 251
 
8 Regenerative Medicine: We Can Grow It for You Wholesale 275
 
9 Conclusion 305
 
  Appendix A: Biotechnology Fields and Areas of Application 321
 
  Appendix B: Techniques and Technologies in Biotechnology Research 327
 
  Appendix C: A Brief Chronology of Bioinformatics 333
 
  Appendix D: Biotechnology and Popular Culture; or, Mutants, Replicants, and Zombies 339
 
  Notes 347
 
  Index 413