The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon (Conversations In Medicine And Society) - Softcover

Nelkin, Dorothy; Lindee, M. Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0472030043 ISBN 13: 9780472030040

Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 2004

Synopsis

"The DNA Mystique is a wake-up call to all who would dismiss America's love affair with 'the gene' as a merely eccentric obsession."
--In These Times

"Nelkin and Lindee are to be warmly congratulated for opening up this intriguing field [of genetics in popular culture] to further study."
--Nature

The DNA Mystique suggests that the gene in popular culture draws on scientific ideas but is not constrained by the technical definition of the gene as a section of DNA that codes for a protein. In highlighting DNA as it appears in soap operas, comic books, advertising, and other expressions of mass culture, the authors propose that these domains provide critical insights into science itself.

With a new introduction and conclusion, this edition will continue to be an engaging, accessible, and provocative text for the sociology, anthropology, and bioethics classroom, as well as stimulating reading for those generally interested in science and culture.

About this title

About the Author

Dorothy Nelkin, University Professor at New York University, passed away in the spring of 2003.

M. Susan Lindee is Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

From Publishers Weekly

Nelkin and Lindee, sociologists and historians of science at New York Univ. and at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, respectively, have assembled a compendium of "folklore" documenting images of the "gene" in contemporary American popular culture. They utilize this material to examine diverse intersections between current social issues and ideas about genetic determinism. The main chapters are informative surveys of such topics as eugenics, gender, sexuality, familial relations and social behaviors (criminal genes). The authors show how malleable arguments concerning genetic determinism can be and the ways popular images may channel public perception and influence courses of research. The nontechnical text avoids scientific errors. Although overviews in the initial and final pages are less coherent and although they are marred by the occasional opaque buzzword (essentialism, secular soul, supergene), the body of this work offers valuable insights. Illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0472030043
• ISBN 13: 9780472030040
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312