Synopses & Reviews
Making PCR is the fascinating, behind-the-scenes account of the invention of one of the most significant biotech discoveries in our timeand#8212;the polymerase chain reaction. Transforming the practice and potential of molecular biology, PCR extends scientists' ability to identify and manipulate genetic materials and accurately reproduces millions of copies of a given segment in a short period of time. It makes abundant what was once scarceand#8212;the genetic material required for experimentation.
Making PCR explores the culture of biotechnology as it emerged at Certus Corporation during the 1980s and focuses on its distinctive configuration of scientific, technical, social, economic, political, and legal elements, each of which had its own separate trajectory over the preceding decade. The book contains interviews with the remarkable cast of characters who made PCR, including Kary Mullin, the maverick who received the Nobel prize for "discovering" it, as well as the team of young scientists and the company's business leaders.
This book shows how a contingently assembled practice emerged, composed of distinctive subjects, the site where they worked, and the object they invented.
"Paul Rabinow paints a . . . picture of the process of discovery in Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology [and] teases out every possible detail. . . . Makes for an intriguing read that raises many questions about our understanding of the twisting process of discovery itself."and#8212;David Bradley, New Scientist
"Rabinow's book belongs to a burgeoning genre: ethnographic studies of what scientists actually do in the lab. . . . A bold move."and#8212;Daniel Zalewski, Lingua Franca
"[Making PCR is] exotic territory, biomedical research, explored. . . . Rabinow describes a dance: the immigration and repatriation of scientists to and from the academic and business worlds."and#8212;Nancy Maull, New York Times Book Review
Review
and#8220;This audacious and demanding book probes a zone of metamethodology that does not take participantobservation or ethics for granted but, rather, as requiring a concerted, interpretive analytics. . . . The authorsand#8217; serious wonderment as to how to get beyond discordancy is projected toward a and#8216;horizon of a near future,and#8217; specifically, a future of thought and ethical practice. Their liminoid workspace is a compendium of concepts in ferment. They perceive the pathos of difference and of how concepts arise only to deconstruct themselves. They become tricksters, provocateurs.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This short volume is another installmentand#8212;perhaps the capstoneand#8212;of what, without doubt, has been the most important effort during the first decadeand#160;of the new century to experiment with recasting the emblematic research paradigm at the heart ofand#160; modern anthropologyand#8217;s identity.and#160;Fieldwork remains, with its basic forms and values intact, but without its regulative mythologies. We have here instead, under the primary influences ofand#160; Max Weber and John Dewey, a different way of thinkingand#160;and doing anthropological research reflexively engaged, through working collaborations of variable success inside, alongside, and outside ambitious techno-scientificand#160; assemblages that are rooted in regimes of truth and modernity with which anthropology must ever contend in kinship.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;Scholars in the field will find here a cornucopia of ideas to use in addressing problems of their own. The question of what it might mean for anthropological research to be a form of ethical practice has been raised by a number of authors recently, and this is a highly sophisticated and distinctive response.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Demands of the Day asks about the logical standards and forms that should guide ethical and experimental anthropology in the twenty-first century. Anthropologists Paul Rabinow and Anthony Stavrianakis do so by taking up Max Weberandrsquo;s notion of the andldquo;demands of the day.andrdquo; Just as the demand of the day for anthropology decades ago consisted of thinking about fieldwork, today, they argue, the demand is to examine what happens after, how the experiences of fieldwork are gathered, curated, narrated, and ultimately made available for an anthropological practice that moves beyond mere ethnographic description.and#160;Rabinow and Stavrianakis draw on experiences from an innovative set of anthropological experiments that investigated how and whether the human and biological sciences could be brought into a mutually enriching relationship. Conceptualizing the anthropological and philosophic ramifications of these inquiries, they offer a bold challenge to contemporary anthropology to undertake a more rigorous examination of its own practices, blind spots, and capacities, in order to meet the demands of our day.
About the Author
and#160;Paul Rabinowand#160;is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of many books, most recentlyand#160;The Accompanimentand#160;andand#160;Designing Human Practices, both published by the University of Chicago Press.and#160;Anthony Stavrianakisand#160;received his PhD in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1: Toward Biotechnology
2: Cetus Corporation: A Credible Force
3: PCR: Experimental Milieu + the Concept
4: From Concept to Tool
5: Reality Check
Conclusion: A Simple Little Thing
Photographs
A Note on the Interviews
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography