Subject Area: Environmental Humanities

This course examines what many have called the ‘century of the gene’ and its potential for reshaping the environment and humanity. Biotechnology can be understood as a social, political and cultural project as much as a technical one. In this course we consider these issues through the prism of contemporary environmental thinking, drawing on a multidisciplinary tool kit from science studies (STS), cultural and political theory, and sociology. We retrace the emergence of biotechnology from its early imaginings through its emergence as a real project in the twentieth century, and explore a range of contemporary case-studies such as GM food, gene therapy, bio-prospecting, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. You will have the opportunity to select issues such as these for deeper exploration in group projects involving independent research and analysis.