The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, And Culture

by Eugene Thacker

How global biotechnology is redefining "life itself." In the age of global biotechnology, DNA can exist as biological material in a test tube, as a sequence in a computer database, and as economically valuable information in a patent. In The Global Genome , Eugene Thacker asks us to consider the relationship of these three entities and argues thatby their existence and their interrelationshipsthey are fundamentally redefining the notion of biological life itself. Biological science and the biotech industry are increasingly organized at a global level, in large part because of the use of the Internet in exchanging biological data. International genome sequencing efforts, genomic databases, the development of World Intellectual Property policies, and the "borderless" business of biotech are all evidence of the global intersections of biology and informaticsof genetic codes and computer codes. Thacker points out the internal tension in the very concept of the products are more "tech" than "bio," but the technology itself is fully biological, composed of the biomaterial labor of genes, proteins, cells, and tissues. Is biotechnology a technology at all, he asks, or is it a notion of "life itself" that is inseparable from its use in the biotech industry? The three sections of the book cover the three primary activities of biotechnology the encoding of biological materials into digital formas in bioinformatics and genomics; its recoding in various waysincluding the "biocolonialism" of mapping genetically isolated ethnic populations and the newly pervasive concern over "biological security"; and its decoding back into biological materialityas in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Thacker moves easily from science to philosophy to political economics, enlivening his account with ideas from such thinkers as Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Antonio Negri, and Paul Virilio. The "global genome," says Thacker, makes it impossible to consider biotechnology without the context of globalism.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Politics, Biology, Theory

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 2005

About the author

Eugene Thacker is an American philosopher, poet and author. He is Professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. His writing is often associated with the philosophy of nihilism and pessimism. Thacker's books include In the Dust of This Planet and Infinite Resignation.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of biotechnology, politics, or culture would realize that this guy has nothing of consequence to say. I want my money back.