Shortlisted for the 2021 BSLS Book Prize
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Genomic technologies have had a profound impact on understandings of what it means to be human and our links to the world we inhabit, and on practices of inhabiting the world. This book considers this impact across a range of literary forms, cultural practices, and political imaginaries, and argues that new descriptions of biological value introduced through practices of genomic sequencing from the late 1970s registered a broader crisis of narrative form. Examining a wide range of texts by Doris Lessing, Samuel Delany, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Kir Bulychev, Kazuo Ishiguro, Saidiya Hartman, Yaa Gyasi, Svetlana Alexievich, and Jeff VanderMeer, Narrative in the Age of the Genome casts new light on the intersections of genomics with politics of racism, sexuality, labour and gender, neoliberal economics and environmental crisis.
Recenzijas
Imbued throughout with deep concern for the peripheral, the possible, and the political What emerges as most compelling out of this entire tapestry of readings is the author's interpretation of the limits and failures of the extraordinary cultural power of the genome.' * Science * Intellectually rich and rewarding, this study ranges effortlessly across the fields of biology, socio-economic theory and philosophy, drawing on these perspectives to forge novel readings of a range of literary texts. Imaginative and astute in its reflections on genre and narrative form, it is beautifully written throughout. The argument is bold and original, grounded in rigorous research and always attentive to the specific biosocial contexts it explores. * Professor Clare Hanson, University of Southampton, UK * Narrative in the Age of the Genome: Genetic Worlds offers a robust commentary on a broad range of compelling speculative fictions and nonfictions and makes a compelling case for the role of narratives as a critical aspect of emerging biotechnologies and genomics. * The British Society for Literature and Science *
Papildus informācija
Charts the impact of genetic science on literature, culture and our understanding of what it means to be human.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Deindustrialisation and the Selfish Gene
Gene and Strike
Overpopulation and Whiteness: Doris Lessings The Memoirs of a Survivor
Brackets and Choice: Samuel Delanys Trouble on Triton
Chapter 2: Cultivating Dreamworlds
Mutual Aid
Cultivating Humans
The Fifth Problem: Boris and Arkady Strugatskys Roadside Picnic
Genogeography: Kir Bulychevs Anothers Memory
Chapter 3: Memoir and the Laboratory
Metaphors of the Human Genome Project
Welfare, Profit, and the Vitruvian Man
Ending Development: Kazuo Ishiguros Never Let Me Go
Algorithmic Governmentality in Andrew Niccolss Gattaca
Chapter 4: Speculative Ancestry
Ancestry Making
Genre, Genetics, and Genealogy
Henrietta Lacks and Stolen Flesh
Reparation, Romance, and Kinlessness
Leaving: Saidiya Hartmans Lose Your Mother
Staying: Yaa Gyasis Homegoing
Chapter 5: Toxic Infrastructure
Chernobyl and the Postgenomic Condition
Adaptation, Improvisation, and Epigenetics
Mutation and Fragmentation: Svetlana Alexievichs Chernobyl Prayer
Transitional Characterisation: Jeff VanderMeers Southern Reach trilogy
Conclusion: Disappearance, community, characterisation, genre, and scale
Works Cited
Index
Lara Choksey is a Research Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter, UK.
