God is dead. Thanks to the decoding of the human genome, the 'word' has been rendered into 'flesh' and 'we can all be proud of our species as it closes in on this summit of self-knowledge'. Yet, the very architects of its decoding have also warned that 't. Provides a history of genetics in Britain from its inception as a science in the early years of the twentieth century. Seeks to examine the roots of these two paradoxical assessments of the decoding of the human genome. Explores the intersection of historiography, critical theory, and science and technology studies, aiming to reaffirm the inescapable presence and necessity of the 'Absolute.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Acknowledgements
Introduction
References
1. AGRICULTURE AND MEDICINE TODAY
Agriculture, medicine and genetics
Differentiating agriculture and medicine
Historians, historical actors and the archive
The archive and the coming into being of the historian
History as process
References
2. GENETICS, AGRICULTURE AND THE MODERN STATE
Remembering beginnings
The business of breeding
The Plant Breeding Institute
The Scottish Plant Breeding Station
The Welsh Plant Breeding Station
Genetics and the nationalisation of agriculture
Privatisation and the coming of the 'age of genetic engineering'
References
3. GENETICISTS, BOTANISTS AND PLANT BREEDERS
Recovering agency
Plant-breeding before the advent of the Mendelian theory of heredity
Enter the Mendelian theory of heredity
An academic disagreement?
The making of breeders
Academics, professionals and the politics of science
Alliances and forgetting
References
4. LABORATORY WORKERS, CLINICIANS AND INBRED MICE
Of mice and men
Thinking about the organisation of cancer research
Mice and experimental studies of cancer
The modernisation of surgery
Do humans make a difference?
References
5. PATIENTS AND THE MAKING OF THE GENETICS OF CANCER
A vanishing act
Conditions of possibility
Disciplinary power and the amplification of dissonance
Enter the laboratory
The ambiguities of a family history
Dealing with the incommensurable
References 170
6. CANCER AND THE MAKING OF THE HISTORIAN
Impure phenomena
Remaking the world
Punctum and aporia
From transparence to opacity
Order and autonomy
From writing about to writing with
References
7. BEING, THE WORLD OF THINGS AND THE END OF HISTORY
Being and the world of things
Refashioning the rural world
Modernist sensibilities
Contemporary echoes
The history of capital?
References
CONCLUSION
On zoe and bios
(Re)membering in the age of genetic engineering
Restitution and redemption
The return of the subject
The experimental life
This isn't it . . . !
References
Bibliography
