Life as Surplus

Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era

Melinda E. Cooper

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English

University of Washington Press
20 July 2015

History of science; Bio-ethics

Series: In Vivo: The Cultural Mediations of Biomedical Science

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.

By: Melinda E. Cooper
Imprint: University of Washington Press
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 485g
ISBN: 9780295997124
ISBN 10: 0295997125
Series: In Vivo: The Cultural Mediations of Biomedical Science
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 20 July 2015
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Life Beyond the Limits: Inventing the Bioeconomy 2. On Pharmaceutical Empire: AIDS, Security, and Exorcism 3. Preempting Emergence: The Biological Turn in the War on Terror Intermezzo 4. Contortions: Tissue Engineering and the Topological Body 5. Labors of Regeneration: Stem Cells and the Embryoid Bodies of Capital 6. The Unborn Born Again: Neo-Imperialism, the Evangelical Right, and the Culture of Life Epilogue Notes References Index

Melinda Cooper is a research fellow with the Centre for Biomedicine and Society, Kings College London.

Reviews for Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era

"""Melinda Cooper's forceful Life as Surplus is a political economy of the exploitation of life in the biotech era that exposes the modes of re/production attuned to late twentieth-century neoliberal capitalism..Cooper's brilliant and inventive mapping of prevailing contemporary biopolitical imaginaries is precious."" ""A fascinating study of speculative impulses that serve as the foundation of increasingly commercialized life sciences."" ""Life as Surplus is interesting, and examines some of the fundamentals of science practice...Well written, a nd well documented. Useful for professionals and for academic coursework on science and society. Recommended."""