Life as Surplus

Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era

By: Melinda E. Cooper

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Paperback | 20 February 2008

At a Glance

Paperback
234 Pages

Age
22+

Grade
17+

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 1.35

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Focusing on the period between the 1970s and the present, Life as Surplus is a pointed and important study of the relationship between politics, economics, science, and cultural values in the United States today. Melinda Cooper demonstrates that the history of biotechnology cannot be understood without taking into account the simultaneous rise of neoliberalism as a political force and an economic policy. From the development of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s to the second Bush administration's policies on stem cell research, Cooper connects the utopian polemic of free-market capitalism with growing internal contradictions of the commercialized life sciences.

The biotech revolution relocated economic production at the genetic, microbial, and cellular level. Taking as her point of departure the assumption that life has been drawn into the circuits of value creation, Cooper underscores the relations between scientific, economic, political, and social practices. In penetrating analyses of Reagan-era science policy, the militarization of the life sciences, HIV politics, pharmaceutical imperialism, tissue engineering, stem cell science, and the pro-life movement, the author examines the speculative impulses that have animated the growth of the bioeconomy.

At the very core of the new post-industrial economy is the transformation of biological life into surplus value. Life as Surplus offers a clear assessment of both the transformative, therapeutic dimensions of the contemporary life sciences and the violence, obligation, and debt servitude crystallizing around the emerging bioeconomy.

Industry Reviews

"A book of topical timeliness and conceptual and political importance. Cooper reads two terms-biopolitics and neoliberalism-in exciting, exceptional ways, and provides an astute account of contemporary American political culture." Kaushik Sunder Rajan, author of Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life [Duke University Press] ...it fills a knowledge gap in fields too many radicals usually ignore: biotechnology, tissue-engineering, stem cell research and AIDS...we would recommend this book to all radicals. - Mute Magazine, 21st October 2008

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Engineering & Technology Biochemical Engineering Biotechnology Science Science in General History of Science Medicine Pre-Clinical Medicine & Basic Sciences Biology, Life Sciences Life Sciences in General Bio-Ethics

Philosophy of Science

Life Beyond the Limits: Inventing the Bioeconomy	p. 15
On Pharmaceutical Empire: AIDS, Security, and Exorcism	p. 51
Preempting Emergence: The Biological Turn in the War on Terror	p. 74
Intermezzo	p. 101
Contortions: Tissue Engineering and the Topological Body	p. 103
Labors of Regeneration: Stem Cells and the Embryoid Bodies of Capital	p. 129
The Unborn Born Again: Neo-Imperialism, the Evangelical Right, and the Culture of Life	p. 152
Epilogue	p. 175
Notes	p. 177
References	p. 195
Index	p. 212
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Life as Surplus

Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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