The Department of Gender Studies 2016-2017 Public Lecture Series
presents
'You Cannot Sell Life. Without a License': Valuing Life in The Only Ones.
Sherryl Vint
3pm, May 15, 2017, CEU, Oktober 6 /7, Room 102
This lecture will discuss ongoing issues in the commodification of life sciences in Carrola Dibbell's novel The Only Ones. How are we to understand the abstract value of 'life itself' in a context where human tissues and biological capacities have become part of a market economy in IVF and surrogacy services? At the same time, how can we claim to value life in an economy of precarity that leaves many with no option but to offer their biological capacities to the market? This paper will read Dibbell's novel in the context of this biotechnological economy, exploring the bioethical questions it raises.
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Sherryl Vint is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside, where she directs the Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science program. She is the author of a number of works on speculative fiction and science studies, and an editor of the journals Science Fiction Studies and Science Fiction Film and Television.