Biofictions - Race, Genetics and the Contemporary Novel

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Winner of the 2020 British Society for Literature and Science book prize.In this important interdisciplinary study, Josie Gill explores how the contemporary novel has drawn upon, and intervened in, debates about race in late 20th and 21st century genetic science. Reading works by leading contemporary writers including Zadie Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro, Octavia Butler and Colson Whitehead, Biofictions demonstrates how ideas of race are produced at the intersection of science and fiction, which together create the stories about identity, racism, ancestry and kinship which characterize our understanding of race today. By highlighting the role of narrative in the formation of racial ideas in science, this book calls into question the apparent anti-racism of contemporary genetics, which functions narratively, rather than factually or objectively, within the racialized contexts in which it is embedded. In so doing, Biofictions compels us to rethink the long-asked question of whether race is a biological fact or a fiction, calling instead for a new understanding of the relationship between race, science and fiction.>

Product details

• Authors: Dr Josie Gill, Josie Gill, Josie (University of Bristol Gill
• Assisted by: Anton Kirchhofer (Editor), Janine Rogers (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.02.2020
• EAN: 9781350099838
• ISBN: 978-1-350-09983-8
• No. of pages: 224
• Series: Explorations in Science and Li; Explorations in Science and Literature
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Ethnic Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: post-colonial literature, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Literary studies: postcolonial literature, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General