Liminal Lives

Squier Susan Merrill Squier

Description

Embryo adoptions, stem cells capable of transforming into any cell in the human body, intra- and inter-species organ transplantation-these and other biomedical advances have unsettled ideas of what it means to be human, of when life begins and ends. In the first study to consider the cultural impact of the medical transformation of the entire human life span, Susan Merrill Squier argues that fiction-particularly science fiction-serves as a space where worries about ethically and socially charged scientific procedures are worked through. Indeed, she demonstrates that in many instances fiction has anticipated and paved the way for far-reaching biomedical changes. Squier uses the anthropological concept of liminality-the state of being on the threshold of change, no longer one thing yet not quite another-to explore how, from the early twentieth century forward, fiction and science together have altered not only the concept of the human being but the contours of human life.Drawing on archival materials of twentieth-century biology; little-known works of fiction and science fiction; and twentieth- and twenty-first century U.S. and U.K. government reports by the National Institutes of Health, the Parliamentary Advisory Group on the Ethics of Xenotransplantation, and the President's Council on Bioethics, she examines a number of biomedical changes as each was portrayed by scientists, social scientists, and authors of fiction and poetry. Among the scientific developments she considers are the cultured cell, the hybrid embryo, the engineered intrauterine fetus, the child treated with human growth hormone, the process of organ transplantation, and the elderly person rejuvenated by hormone replacement therapy or other artificial means. Squier shows that in the midst of new phenomena such as these, literature helps us imagine new ways of living. It allows us to reflect on the possibilities and perils of our liminal lives.

Sujets

• Médecine

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 07 décembre 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822386285
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

L I M I N A L L I V E S

Liminal Lives

I M A G I N I N G T H E H U M A N AT

T H E F R O N T I E R S O F B I O M E D I C I N E

Susan Merrill Squier

Duke University Press

Durham & London

2004

∫2004 Duke University Press

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Cycles with Helvetica Neue display by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Republication acknowledgments appear

at the bottom of page 334.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Squier, Susan Merrill. Liminal lives : imagining the human at the frontiers of biomedicine / Susan Merrill Squier. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8223-3381-3 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 0-8223-3366- x (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social medicine. 2. Medical ethics. 3. Medical technology. 4. Human reproductive technology. 5. Science fiction. I. Title. [ dnlm: 1. Bioethics. 2. Ethics, Medical. 3. Feminism. 4. Medicine in Literature. 5. Reproductive Techniques—ethics. wb 60 s 7731. 2004] ra 418. s 76 2004 174.2%9—dc22 2004014307

I dedicate this book

with love to my parents,

constance chester squier

and john david squier

(August 16, 1925–August 4, 2004)

All things are impermanent.

That which is born will also die; that which has met will also part;

what has been taken will be lost; what has been made will break.

Time flies past like an arrow. All is evanescent.

Is there, in this world, anything not transient?

—Eihei-ji

Contents

List of Illustrationsxi Acknowledgmentsxiii

Introduction: Networking Liminality 1

1 The Uses of Literature for Feminist Science Studies: Tracing Liminal Lives 25

2 The Cultured Cell: Life and Death at Strangeways

3 The Hybrid Embryo and Xenogenic Desire

89

4 Giant Babies: Graphing Growth in the Early Twentieth Century 112

58

5 Incubabies and Rejuvenates: The Tra≈c between Technologies of Reproduction and Age Extension 146

6 Transplant Medicine and Transformative Narrative

168

7 Liminal Performances of Aging: From Replacement to Regeneration 214

Coda: The Pluripotent Discourse of Stem Cells: Liminality, Reflexivity, and Literature 253

Notes281 Works Cited315 Index335