Home | Introduction | Schedule & Participants | Reading Materials

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1. Introduction: Biotechnology, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge
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- Jeremy Rifkin, "Introduction"
from The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?632


-Richard Lewontin
, "The DNA Era"
http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/16-4lewontin.html

- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
, "Preface: Life in Common"
from Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

- Paul Rabinow, "Steps Toward a Third Culture"
from Essays on The Anthropology of Reason

- C.P. Snow, "Two Cultures"
http://info.med.yale.edu/therarad/summers/snow.htm

- Vandana Shiva, "The Highjacking of the Global Food Supply"
from Stolen Harvest
http://www.vshiva.net/archives.htm

- Antonio Gramsci, "The Formation of the Intellectuals"
from The Prison Notebooks
http://www.marxist.org/gramsci



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2. The Kurtz Case: A Dossier
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- Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) Legal Defense Fund "FBI Abducts Artist, Seizes
Art" May 25, 2004
http://www.caelegaldefense.org

- "Use of Bacteria in Art Leads to Federal Inquiry" The New York Times June 7,
2004

- College Art Association, "Letter to the Editor of The New York Times"

- "Bacteria Raid May Lead to Trial for Artist Tackling Biodefense" Nature June
17, 2004

- Patricia J. Williams "To See or Not to See" The Nation June 24, 2004

- CAE Legal Defense "FBI Harrassment Continues; Artist Faces 20-Year Charges"
July 8, 2004



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3. "Bio-Art": The Genomic Sublime vs. Critical Amateurism
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-Steven Madoff "The Wonders of Genetics Breed a New Art" The New York Times May
26, 2002
(bioart review articles at http://www.ekac.org/transartbiblio.html)

- Hal Cohen,"Bioscience Moves into the Gallery as Bio-art" The Scientist
November 11, 2002

- Jeremy Rifkin, "Dazzled by the Science: Biologists Who Dress Up High-tech
Eugenics As New Art Form are Dangerously Deluded" The Guardian
January 13, 2003

- Interview with Eduardo Kac "Picturing DNA: An Interview with Eduardo Kac" from genomicart.org

- CAE, "Contestational Biology" from The Molecular Invasion 2002
(critical-art.net)

- CAE, "Interview" and "The Amateur" The Interventionists: Art in the Social
Sphere 2004

- Beatriz Da Costa/CAE, "Modeling and Implementing Non-Specialized
Cross-Disciplinary Production"
http://www.beatrizdacosta.net

- Faith Wilding, "Notes Toward a Politics of Biotech Art for a Third Culture"
October 2004

- Eugene Thacker, "A Biotech Hobbyist Manifesto" and "Biomolecular Writing in a
Nutshell" 2004

-Nato Thompson, "Contributions to a Resistant Visual Culture Glossary" The
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest # 3 Spring/Summer 2004
(http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/3/thompson.htm)


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4. Biotech, Profit and the Public Domain
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- Council For Responsible Genetics
, (CRG) "Who We Are" and "Central Prinicples"(all articles at www.gene-watch.org)

- Sheldon Krimsky and Ruth Hubbard,
"The Origins of CRG" Genewatch January 2003

- Center for Genetics and Society,
"The Bioethics Discourse"

- Sheldon Krimsky,
"Science on Trial" Genewatch Sept/Oct 2004

- Jonathan King and Doreen Stabinsky,
"Patents on Cells, Genes and Organisms
Undermine the Exchange of Scientific Ideas" Chronicle of Higher Education
February 5, 1999

- CRG,
"Life Patents" and "No Life Patents Petition"

- Vandana Shiva
, "Biotech Wars: Food Freedom vs. Food Slavery" June 23, 2003

- Vandana Shiva
, "The Enclosure of the Commons: Biodiveristy, Indigenous
Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights"
http://www.vshiva.net/archives.htm

- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,
"Life on the Market" in Multitude 2004
Stop the Lab: Environmental Justice, the "New Boston" and the Shadow of Biowar

- Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), "Mission Statement"
(articles on Stop the Lab at www.ace-ej.org)

- Klare Allen
, Interview with Z Magazine July/August 2004

- Charles Pierce, "Boston's Biotech Moment" The Boston Globe December 14, 2003

- ACE, "Why We Oppose the Lab" June 2004

- Sujatha Byravan and Sheldon Krimsky
, "Boston Residents Should Decide Future of Biolab" South End News November 2003

-Jonathan King
, Testimony at Hearings before Boston City Council April 13, 2004

- ACE, "Community Rallies to Ban Bioterror Lab; Demands Funding for Public
Health, Housing and Other Community Needs" July 28, 2004

- CRG
, "Frequently Asked Questions: Biodefense Research"

- Eugene Thacker, "Historical Background to U.S. Biowar Program"
www.caelegaldefense.org

- Susan Wright, "Taking Biodefense Too Far" Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Nov/Dec
2004

- CRG
, "Campaign for the Peaceful Development of the Biological Sciences" June
20, 2004 Appendix 1: Documents

- MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), Founding Document: G. Kepes (1967)

- Union of Concerned Scientists, Founding Document: MIT Faculty Statement
(1968)
http://www.ucsusa.org/ucs/about/page.cfm?pageID=1006

- Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling
of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their
Destruction (1972)

- U.S. Supreme Court, "Chakrabarty v Diamond"
(1980)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=447&invol=303

- National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Prinicples of
Environmental Justice (1991)
http://home.earthlink.net/~clearh2orev/ejprin.html

- The Genetic Bill of Rights (2000)
http://www.gene-watch.org/programs/bill-of-rights.html

- USA PATRIOT, Act Sec. 817 Expansion of the Biological Weapons Statute (2001)

- Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons (2002)
http:// www.fet.org

- Johannesburg Declaration on Biopiracy, Biodiversity and Community Rights
(2002) http://www.biowatch.org.za/jhbdecl.htm
Appendix 2: Selected Artefacts from the Website of The Biotechnology Industry
Organization http://www.bio.org

- "Biotechnology Solutions for Everyday Life" (pamphlet)

- Dan Eramian, "Patents Save Lives" June 24, 2004

- Carl Feldbaum, "Plenary Address June 8, 2004*

- "Statement of Ethical Prinicples"

- "Timeline"**


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T
HE GENETIC BILL OF RIGHTS
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by The Board of Directors of the Council for Responsible Genetics

(2000)

PREAMBLE

Our life and health depend on an intricate web of relationships within the biological and social worlds. Protection of these relationships must inform all public policy.

Commercial, governmental, scientific and medical institutions promote manipulation of genes despite profound ignorance of how such changes may affect the web of life. Once they enter the environment, organisms with modified genes cannot be recalled and pose novel risks to humanity and the entire biosphere. Manipulation of human genes creates new threats to the health of individuals and their offspring, and endangers human rights, privacy and dignity. Genes, other constituents of life, and genetically modified organisms themselves are rapidly being patented and turned into objects of commerce. This commercialization of life is veiled behind promises to cure disease and feed the hungry.

People everywhere have the right to participate in evaluating the social and biological implications of the genetic revolution and in democratically guiding its applications.

To protect our human rights and integrity and the biological integrity of the earth, we, therefore, propose this Genetic Bill of Rights.

THE GENETIC BILL OF RIGHTS
1. All people have the right to preservation of the earth‚s biological and genetic diversity.
2. All people have the right to a world in which living organisms cannot be patented, including human beings, animals, plants, microorganisms and all their parts.
3. All people have the right to a food supply that has not been genetically engineered.
4. All indigenous peoples have the right to manage their own biological resources, to preserve their traditional knowledge, and to protect these from expropriation and biopiracy by scientific, corporate or government interests.
5. All people have the right to protection from toxins, other contaminants, or actions that can harm their genetic makeup and that of their offspring.
6. All people have the right to protection against eugenic measures such as forced sterilization or mandatory screening aimed at aborting or manipulating selected embryos or fetuses.
7. All people have the right to genetic privacy including the right to prevent the taking or storing of bodily samples for genetic information without their voluntary informed consent.
8. All people have the right to be free from genetic discrimination.
9. All people have the right to DNA tests to defend themselves in criminal proceedings.
10. All people have the right to have been conceived, gestated, and born without genetic manipulation.