Thesis ID: CBB001561958

Imagining Cloned Americans: Post-Dolly Revisions of the Genetic Explanation (2002)

unapi

Turner, Stephanie S. (Author)


Purdue University (Lafayette, Indiana)
Somerville, Siobhan


Publication Date: 2002
Edition Details: Advisor: Somerville, Siobhan
Physical Details: 329 pp.
Language: English

The purpose of the present study is to examine critically the impact of nuclear transfer cloning technology on contemporary American cultural values pertaining to individual uniqueness, reproductive freedom, biotechnological innovation, and the role of religion in public life. Establishing the centrality of the genetic explanation in these values, that is, the popular notion that one's genetic make-up determines one's identity and kinship with others, the project proceeds from the question of how the presumed genetic replication of citizens through cloning contributes to this view. What does imagining cloned Americans reveal about the function of genetic accounts in citizens' rights, corporate investments, civic bioethics, and national history? To answer this question, the project develops a comparative analysis of the creative fictions about cloning Americans in novels, short stories, and films with the speculative narratives about national cloned subjects in bioethics discussions, legal debates, scientific hypotheses, and theological texts, focusing on the points where these accounts have attempted to negotiate the new representational issues raised by cloning and related genetics technologies. Rather than reflecting an essentialist reliance upon genetic make-up in assessing the value of human reproductive cloning, these fictions and the cloning scenarios in the American public debate following the creation of Dolly, the first cloned mammal, together reveal the political efficacy of the genetic explanation. Although these cloning scenarios dramatize in some predictable ways the reductive ideology through which genes substitute for person, they also illustrate the contingent and therefore politically strategic aspects of genetic essentialism, emphasizing the continuing challenges presented by eugenics, historical representation, the ownership of life, and secular religion. Viewing cultural conceptions of cloning through an American national lens, the project demonstrates the usefulness of American Studies methods in examining a contemporary development in international science as a cultural phenomenon with distinctly American dimensions.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 64 (2004): 2948. UMI order no. 3099218.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561958/

Similar Citations

Thesis Stickgold-Sarah, Jessie; (2011)
The Textual Body: Genetics and Dystopia in American Fiction (/isis/citation/CBB001562734/)

Article Sgaramella, Vittorio; (2003)
Human Cloning: Mission Futile, Dangerous or Impossible? (/isis/citation/CBB000600336/)

Article Guo, Sun-Wei; (2013)
China's “Gene War of the Century” and Its Aftermath: The Contest Goes On (/isis/citation/CBB001420872/)

Book Franklin, Sarah; (2013)
Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship (/isis/citation/CBB001422164/)

Book Macintosh, Kerry Lynn; (2005)
Illegal Beings: Human Clones and the Law (/isis/citation/CBB000650675/)

Book Ben Martynoga; (2018)
Molecular Tinkering: The Edinburgh Scientists Who Changed the Face of Modern Biology (/isis/citation/CBB777108676/)

Article Turner, Stephanie S.; (2009)
Imagining a Cloned Messiah: Science, Religion, and Nationalism at the End of Time (/isis/citation/CBB001032375/)

Article Hellsten, Iina; (2008)
Popular Metaphors of Biosciences: Bridges over Time? (/isis/citation/CBB000932150/)

Book Nathan Crowe; (2021)
Forgotten Clones: The Birth of Cloning and the Biological Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB793514943/)

Book Banchoff, Thomas F.; (2011)
Embryo Politics: Ethics and Policy in Atlantic Democracies (/isis/citation/CBB001212716/)

Article Clayton, Jay; (2013)
The Ridicule of Time: Science Fiction, Bioethics, and the Posthuman (/isis/citation/CBB001200682/)

Article Gintis, Herbert; (2014)
Inclusive Fitness and the Sociobiology of the Genome (/isis/citation/CBB001421608/)

Article Dove, William; Susman, Millard; (2012)
James F. Crow (1916--2012) (/isis/citation/CBB001320466/)

Thesis Childerhose, Janet Elizabeth; (2010)
Genetic Discrimination: Genealogy of an American Problem (/isis/citation/CBB001562763/)

Book Sulston, John; Ferry, Georgina; (2002)
The Common Thread: A Story of Science, Politics, Ethics, and the Human Genome (/isis/citation/CBB000741340/)

Article Richardson, Sarah S.; (2012)
Sexing the X: How the X Became the “Female Chromosome” (/isis/citation/CBB001200847/)

Article Susan Lindee; (2016)
Human genetics after the bomb: Archives, clinics, proving grounds and board rooms (/isis/citation/CBB258919491/)

Article Sommer, Marianne; (2012)
Human Evolution across the Disciplines: Spotlights on American Anthropology and Genetics (/isis/citation/CBB001210313/)

Authors & Contributors
Martynoga, Ben
Lindee, M. Susan
Franklin, Sarah
Turner, Stephanie S.
Susman, Millard
Sulston, John
Concepts
Human genetics
Cloning of organisms
Science and literature
Biology and ethics; bioethics
Genetics
Genetic engineering
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Edinburgh
Germany
France
China
Institutions
Human Genome Project
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment