A Simpler Life: Synthetic Biological Experiments
Talia Dan-Cohen
Abstract
This book approaches the developing field of synthetic biology by focusing on the experimental and institutional lives of practitioners in two labs at Princeton University. It highlights the distance between hyped technoscience and the more plodding and entrenched aspects of academic research. The book follows practitioners as they wrestle with experiments, attempt to publish research findings, and navigate the ins and outs of academic careers. It foregrounds the practices and rationalities of these pursuits that give both researchers' lives and synthetic life their distinctive contemporary fo ... More
This book approaches the developing field of synthetic biology by focusing on the experimental and institutional lives of practitioners in two labs at Princeton University. It highlights the distance between hyped technoscience and the more plodding and entrenched aspects of academic research. The book follows practitioners as they wrestle with experiments, attempt to publish research findings, and navigate the ins and outs of academic careers. It foregrounds the practices and rationalities of these pursuits that give both researchers' lives and synthetic life their distinctive contemporary forms. Rather than draw attention to avowed methodology, the book investigates some of the more subtle and tectonic practices that bring knowledge, doubt, and technological intervention into new configurations. In so doing, it sheds light on the more general conditions of contemporary academic technoscience.
Keywords:
synthetic biology,
Princeton University,
hyped technoscience,
academic research,
academic technoscience
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2021 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781501753442 |
Published to Cornell Scholarship Online: September 2021 |
DOI:10.7591/cornell/9781501753442.001.0001 |