Publication details
Imagination of genes. An Exhibition
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The paper is a sociological and anthropological conceptualisation of the theme of DNA as the specific representation of the human body and definition of humaness above all. Taking advantage of interpretative and critical social theory (Rabinow, Rose, Lemke, Foucault, etc.), this paper examines the narrative concerning complementarity of sameness and difference in the production of knowledge within interpretation of various imaginations of DNA, genom and the embryo, mainly. The new emerging of the idea of race, like the main theme of distribution the sameness and difference, is critically analyses within broader area of contemporary forms of the biopower: questions of race, reproductive medicine and genomic (Rabinow, Rose 2006). On the particular case of Johann Gregor Mendel museum in Brno, museum of genetics, the paper explores narration about the lineage of the humanness. These representations of human genom presented in exhibition about genom research history refer to the cultural imagination of genomic and DNA in connection with notions of time and memory. This paper asks the consequences which the use of words and images connected with concepts of “origin” or imagination of the body for the construction of national core-group or national core solidarity of the community have brought. The core arguments are associated with analysis of the representation of the “authenticity” of the national body, the DNA, the genom in the connecting with the legitimization of ethnic or national borderlines identification. |
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