Books by Kavita Philip

Popular culture in this "biological century" seems to feed on proliferating fears, anxieties, and hopes around the life sciences at a time when such basic concepts as scientific truth, race and gender identity, and the human itself are destabilized in the public eye. Tactical Biopolitics suggests that the political challenges at the intersection of life, science, and art are best addressed through a combination of artistic intervention, critical theorizing, and reflective practices. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, contributions to this volume focus on the political significance of recent advances in the biological sciences and explore the possibility of public participation in scientific discourse, drawing on research and practice in art, biology, critical theory, anthropology, and cultural studies. After framing the subject in terms of both biology and art, Tactical Biopolitics discusses such topics as race and genetics (with contributions from leading biologists Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins); feminist bioscience; the politics of scientific expertise; bioart and the public sphere (with an essay by artist Claire Pentecost); activism and public health (with an essay by Treatment Action Group co-founder Mark Harrington); biosecurity after 9/11 (with essays by artists' collective Critical Art Ensemble and anthropologist Paul Rabinow); and human-animal interaction (with a framing essay by cultural theorist Donna Haraway).

ContributorsGaymon Bennett, Larry Carbone, Karen Cardozo, Gary Cass, Beatriz da Costa, Oron Catts, Gabriella Coleman, Critical Art Ensemble, Gwen D'Arcangelis, Troy Duster, Donna Haraway, Mark Harrington, Jens Hauser, Kathy High, Fatimah Jackson, Gwyneth Jones, Jonathan King, Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Rachel Mayeri, Sherie McDonald, Claire Pentecost, Kavita Philip, Paul Rabinow, Banu Subramanian, subRosa, Abha Sur, Samir Sur, Jacqueline Stevens, Eugene Thacker, Paul Vanouse, Ionat Zurr

Both human rights and globalization are powerful ideas and processes, capable of transforming the world in profound ways. Notwithstanding their universal claims, however, the processes are constructed, and they draw their power from the specific cultural and political contexts in which they are constructed. Far from bringing about a harmonious cosmopolitan order, they have stimulated conflict and opposition. In the context of globalization, as the idea of human rights has become universal, its meaning has become one more terrain of struggle among groups with their own interests and goals. Part I of this volume looks at political and cultural struggles to control the human rights regime -- that is, the power to construct the universal claims that will prevail in a territory -- with respect to property, the state, the environment, and women. Part II examines the dynamics and counterdynamics of transnational networks in their interactions with local actors in Iran, China, and Hong Kong. Part III looks at the prospects for fruitful human rights dialogiue between competing universalisms that by definition are intolerant of conradiction and averse to compromise.