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

Description:

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

描述：
在全球生物技術時代，DNA可以存在於試管中作為生物材料，存在於電腦數據庫中作為序列，並以專利的形式成為具有經濟價值的信息。在《全球基因組》一書中，尤金·塔克要求我們考慮這三個實體之間的關係，並主張通過它們的存在和相互關係，它們從根本上重新定義了生物“生命本身”的概念。

生物科學和生物技術行業在很大程度上越來越在全球層面組織起來，這主要是因為在交換生物數據方面使用了互聯網。國際基因組序列化工作、基因組數據庫、世界知識產權政策的制定以及生物技術的“無邊界”業務都是生物學和信息學的全球交叉的證據，即基因代碼和計算機代碼。塔克指出了生物技術概念中的內在張力：產品更多地是“技術”而不是“生物”，但技術本身完全是生物的，由基因、蛋白質、細胞和組織的生物材料勞動組成。他問，生物技術到底是一種技術，還是一種與生物技術行業中的使用不可分割的“生命本身”的概念？

該書的三個部分涵蓋了當今生物技術的三個主要活動：將生物材料編碼為數字形式，如生物信息學和基因組學；以各種方式重新編碼，包括對基因隔離的民族群體進行“生物殖民主義”地圖化和對“生物安全”的新普遍關注；以及將其解碼回生物物質性，如組織工程和再生醫學。塔克輕鬆地從科學轉向哲學和政治經濟學，並以喬治·巴塔耶、喬治·坎吉耶姆、米歇爾·福柯、安東尼奧·內格里和保羅·維里略等思想家的觀點豐富了他的描述。塔克說，“全球基因組”使得在全球化背景下考慮生物技術成為不可能。

尤金·塔克是喬治亞理工學院文學、傳播和文化學院的助理教授。

目錄：
系列前言
Joel Slayton的前言
序言
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