Subject Area: Environmental Humanities

This course examines what many have called the ‘century of the gene’ and its implications for contemporary environmental thinking. Biotechnology might therefore be understood as a social, political and cultural project inasmuch they are a technical and technological one. This course considers these issues through the prism of contemporary environmental thinking, drawing on a multidisciplinary set of insights from science and technology studies (STS), cultural and political theory, cultural anthropology and sociology. Focusing on the scientific and cultural history of molecular biology and biotechnology, and covering a range of contemporary case-studies on GM food, bio-prospecting, nanotechnology and synthetic biology, the course will equip students with a theoretical and conceptual tool kit that will enable them to better understand these developments. The course will focus particularly on the political and social implications of new genetic knowledge and contemporary biotechnological research. We will treat the changes brought about by the genetics revolution as an opportunity to rethink key concepts in contemporary environmental politics – including citizenship, representation, property, reproduction and conservation. These issues will be explored through group case study projects offering an opportunity for independent research and analysis, together with targeted readings from recent scholarly work.