Playing Dolly: Technocultural Formations, Fantasies, and Fictions of Assisted Reproduction (Millennial Shifts) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813526485 ISBN 13: 9780813526485

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Reproductive technology spans techniques ranging from cloning, surrogate motherhood, egg donation, and prenatal testing. In the early nineties, when public debate about this topic was new, the discourse focused on the moral and ethical issues that these new technologies evoked. Less than a decade later, the editors in Playing Dolly state, ethical questions seem less urgent. Enormous changes have taken place in the way that reproduction is represented, understood, and discussed.

The pieces, which range from the biomedical to the sociocultural and include even fiction, reflect the shift in public perception of these complex topics. They testify to the increasing acceptance of reproductive technology, and the resulting reduction in concern over the ethical issues raised by technological intervention.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The actual and potential techniques of assisted reproduction, from surrogate motherhood, egg donation, and prenatal testing, to cloning, ectogenesis, and interspecies reproduction, have shaken our understanding of what constitutes "natural" procreation. In the early 1990s, discourse focused on the moral and ethical issues posed by birth technology innovations. Less that a decade later, enormous changes have taken place in the way reproduction is represented, discussed, and understood. Ethical debates may be muted for some by awareness of the benefits assisted reproduction provides. However, the volume reveals that assisted reproduction is catalyzing major shifts in the construction of the disciplines. The essays in this book reflect these emerging disciplinary geographies shaped by the cultural, economic, psychological, ecological, and commercial implications of these new technologies. In genres ranging from the biomedical and sociocultural to the fictional, the contributors explore the bodies- affected by "playing dolly."

The contributors are Dion Farquhar, Leslie Dwyer, Angela Wall, Pamela L. Moore, Anne Balsamo, Susan Squier, E. Ann Kaplan, Kay Torney Souter, and John Wiltshire, Vivian Sobchack, Susan Stryker, Karyn Valerius, Charis Thompson Cussins, Richard Nash and Gabriele Schwab.

Review:

"Playing Dolly makes a seriously playful contribution to the proliferating analyses of species, boundaries, and kinship coming into use within a public culture far from able to negotiate the many ethical issues raised." -- Fran Bartkowski, author of Travelers, Immigrants, Inmates: Essays in Estrangement

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0813526485
• ISBN 13: 9780813526485
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 273
• Editor: Kaplan E.