Bits of Life

by Smelik, Anneke; Lykke, Nina

• ISBN13: 9780295988092
• ISBN10: 0295988096
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr

Summary

Since World War II, the biological and technological have been fusing and merging in new ways, resulting in the loss of a clear distinction between the two. This entanglement of biology with technology isn't new, but the pervasiveness of that integration is staggering, as is the speed at which the two have been merging in recent decades. As this process permeates more of everyday life, the urgent necessity arises to rethink both biology and technology. Indeed, the human body can no longer be regarded either as a bounded entity or as a naturally given and distinct part of an unquestioned whole.Bits of Lifeassumes a post-human definition of the body. It is grounded in questions about today's biocultures, which pertain neither to humanist bodily integrity nor to the anthropological assumption that human bodies are the only ones that matter. Editors Anneke Smelik and Nina Lykke aid in mapping changes and transformations and in striking a middle road between the metaphor and the material. In exploring current reconfigurations of bodies and embodied subjects, the contributors pursue a technophilic, yet critical, path while articulating new and thoroughly appraised ethical standards.Anneke Smelik is professor of visual culture at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Nina Lykke is professor of gender studies, Linkoeping University, Sweden, and head of the Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Bits of Life: An Introduction	p. ix
Histories and Genealogies
Feminist Cultural Studies of Technoscience: Portrait of an Implosion	p. 3
Roots and Routes: The Making of Feminist Cultural Studies of Technoscience	p. 16
"There Are Always More Things Going On Than You Thought!": Methodologies as Thinking Technologies: Interview with Donna Haraway	p. 32
Reconfigured Bodies
Fluid Ecologies: Changing Hormonal Systems of Embodied Difference	p. 45
Parenthood and Kinship in IVF for Humans and Animals: On Traveling Bits of Life in the Age of Genetics	p. 61
From Rambo Sperm to Egg Queens: Two Versions of Lennart Nilsson's Film on Human Reproduction	p. 79
Screening the Gene: Hollywood Cinema and the Genetic Imaginary	p. 94
Remediated Bodies
MyLifeBits: The Computer as Memory Machine	p. 113
Tunnel Vision: Inner, Outer, and Virtual Space in Science Fiction Films and Medical Documentaries	p. 129
What If Frankenstein('s Monster) Was a Girl?: Reproduction and Subjectivity in the Digital Age	p. 147
Philosophies of Life
Living in a Posthumanist Material World: Lessons from Schrodinger's Cat	p. 165
The Politics of Life as Bios/Zoe	p. 177
Bibliography	p. 193
Contributors	p. 209
Index	p. 212
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