How did cells make the journey, one we take so much for granted, from their origin in living bodies to something that can be grown and manipulated on artificial media in the laboratory, a substantial biomass living outside a human body, plant, or animal? This is the question at the heart of Hannah Landecker's book. She shows how cell culture changed the way we think about such central questions of the human condition as individuality, hybridity, and even immortality and asks what it means that we can remove cells from the spatial and temporal constraints of the body and "harness them to human intention." Rather than focus on single discrete biotechnologies and their stories--embryonic stem cells, transgenic animals--Landecker documents and explores the wider genre of technique behind artificial forms of cellular life. She traces the lab culture common to all those stories, asking where it came from and what it means to our understanding of life, technology, and the increasingly blurry boundary between them. The technical culture of cells has transformed the meaning of the term "biological," as life becomes disembodied, distributed widely in space and time. Once we have a more specific grasp on how altering biology changes what it is to be biological, Landecker argues, we may be more prepared to answer the social questions that biotechnology is raising.
Hannah Landecker is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Technologies of Living Substance 1 Autonomy 2 Immortality 3 Mass Reproduction 4 HeLa 5 Hybridity Epilogue: Cells Then and Now Notes Index
What People are Saying About This
In our age of cloning and stem cells, Landecker's challenging study does a real service as it locates the techniques and ideas, developed through time, which make these cell manipulations possible. Landecker charts the uncertain movement of cells from organisms (including humans) to the laboratory, moving beyond cell cultures to the expectations of biologists and to the philosophical and ethical issues that emerge as control over life becomes possible. Others have written histories of cell theory; here Landecker recovers the story of the cell practices that have transformed what we mean by life.
Everett Mendelsohn
In our age of cloning and stem cells, Landecker's challenging study does a real service as it locates the techniques and ideas, developed through time, which make these cell manipulations possible. Landecker charts the uncertain movement of cells from organisms (including humans) to the laboratory, moving beyond cell cultures to the expectations of biologists and to the philosophical and ethical issues that emerge as control over life becomes possible. Others have written histories of cell theory; here Landecker recovers the story of the cell practices that have transformed what we mean by life. — Everett Mendelsohn, Harvard University
Margaret Lock
Culturing Life is a beautifully written, lucid account of the history of tissue culture, a technology that permits the isolation of cells from bodies, their continuous reproduction, and global distribution as immortalized cell lines. Landecker draws us into a world where the limits of biological plasticity are continually tested, cell fusion and cloning are commonplace, and biological time is transcended--in short, technological manipulation has forever transformed what it is to be biological. This book will rapidly become indispensable reading in the field of science and technology studies. — Margaret Lock, author of Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death
Angela N. H. Creager
In Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies, Landecker offers a history of the development of cell culture in biology that is sparkling with originality and insight. She has an anthropologist's eye for nodes of cultural significance even as her narrative arc is deeply historical. The book weaves a rich tapestry of biological, historical, and cultural connections. — Angela N. H. Creager, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University
Jane Maienschein
Landecker hits exactly the right balance of interpretive analysis and presentation of substance. Her stories carry the more technical descriptions so that both are motivated and compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and, moreover, I found it exciting. — Jane Maienschein, Regents' Professor and Parents Association Professor of Biology and Society
