Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience

Front Cover
Beatriz Da Costa, Kavita Philip
MIT Press, Aug 13, 2010 - Social Science - 536 pages
Scientists, scholars, and artists consider the political significance of recent advances in the biological sciences.

Popular culture in this “biological century” seems to feed on proliferating fears, anxieties, and hopes around the life sciences at a time when such basic concepts as scientific truth, race and gender identity, and the human itself are destabilized in the public eye. Tactical Biopolitics suggests that the political challenges at the intersection of life, science, and art are best addressed through a combination of artistic intervention, critical theorizing, and reflective practices. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, contributions to this volume focus on the political significance of recent advances in the biological sciences and explore the possibility of public participation in scientific discourse, drawing on research and practice in art, biology, critical theory, anthropology, and cultural studies. After framing the subject in terms of both biology and art, Tactical Biopolitics discusses such topics as race and genetics (with contributions from leading biologists Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins); feminist bioscience; the politics of scientific expertise; bioart and the public sphere (with an essay by artist Claire Pentecost); activism and public health (with an essay by Treatment Action Group co-founder Mark Harrington); biosecurity after 9/11 (with essays by artists' collective Critical Art Ensemble and anthropologist Paul Rabinow); and human-animal interaction (with a framing essay by cultural theorist Donna Haraway).

Contributors
Gaymon Bennett, Larry Carbone, Karen Cardozo, Gary Cass, Beatriz da Costa, Oron Catts, Gabriella Coleman, Critical Art Ensemble, Gwen D'Arcangelis, Troy Duster, Donna Haraway, Mark Harrington, Jens Hauser, Kathy High, Fatimah Jackson, Gwyneth Jones, Jonathan King, Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Rachel Mayeri, Sherie McDonald, Claire Pentecost, Kavita Philip, Paul Rabinow, Banu Subramanian, subRosa, Abha Sur, Samir Sur, Jacqueline Stevens, Eugene Thacker, Paul Vanouse, Ionat Zurr

 

Contents

I
1
2
25
3
32
II
41
6
72
The Biolab and the Public
105
The Ethics of Experiential Engagement with the Manipulation of Life
125
A Biotech Handson Workshop for Artists
143
Sexual Politics and the Lab Procedural
289
Expertise and Amateur Science
307
A Movement to Revolutionize Research
323
Psychiatric Survivors Challenge to Psychiatry
341
When Art Becomes Science
365
Biosecurity and Bioethics
387
How Do We Insure Security from Perceived Biological Threats?
401
Bioparanoia and the Culture of Control
413

Race and the Genome
157
Analogy DNA Imaging and the Latent Figure
177
The Biopolitics of Human Genetics Research and Its Application
193
Human Genome and Identity Politics
205
Gendered Science
219
Producing Transnational Knowledge Neoliberal Identities and Technoscientific
243
The Nature Culture of BioFiction in Ruth Ozekis
269
Chinese Chickens Ducks Pigs and Humans and the Technoscientific Discourses
429
Interspecies CoProduction
443
Playing with Rats
465
A Case Study in Secular Ethics of HumanAnimal
479
Contributors
487
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience
Beatriz Da Costa,Kavita Philip
Snippet view - 2008
Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience
Beatriz Da Costa,Kavita Philip,Joseph Dumit
No preview available - 2008
Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience
Beatriz Da Costa,Kavita Philip
No preview available - 2010

Common terms and phrases

activism activists African Americans agility AIDS animals anthrax artists bioart biological weapons Biopolitics biotech biotechnology bioterrorism body cells challenge Chinese collaboration complex contact zone contemporary context create critical Critical Art Ensemble critique database discourse disease DNA fingerprinting documentary dogs Donna Haraway drug Eduardo Kac emerging engagement engineering environment environmental ethical Eugene Thacker example experience feminist fiction fingerprint forms gender gene genetic global groups Human Genome Human Genome Project images India infectious intellectual issues knowledge laboratory living means molecular narrative nature neoliberal organisms Ozeki participants pharmaceutical play political population practices Press problem production programs psychiatric survivors public health questions race racial rats resistance scientific scientists sexual social species studies subRosa synthetic biology tactical Tactical Media technoscience technoscientific theory tion Tissue Culture transgenic transnational treatment University women York

About the author (2010)

Beatriz da Costa does interventionist art using computing and biotechnologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kavita Philip studies colonialism, neoliberalism, and technoscience using history and critical theory. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Beatriz da Costa does interventionist art using computing and biotechnologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kavita Philip studies colonialism, neoliberalism, and technoscience using history and critical theory. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Kavita Philip studies colonialism, neoliberalism, and technoscience using history and critical theory. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

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

Beatriz da Costa does interventionist art using computing and biotechnologies. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Paul Rabinow is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. His most recent books include Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (with Hubert Dreyfus) and The Foucault Reader.

Bibliographic information

TitleTactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience
EditorsBeatriz Da Costa, Kavita Philip
ContributorJoseph Dumit
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherMIT Press, 2010
ISBN0262514915, 9780262514910
Length536 pages
Subjects › 

Art / Criticism & Theory
Science / Biotechnology
Social Science / Media Studies
  
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