What do biologists study when they study "life" today? Drawing on tools from rhetoric and poststructuralist theory, the author argues that the ascent of molecular biology, with its emphasis on molecules such as DNA rather than organisms, was enabled by crucial rhetorical "softwares." Metaphors such as the genetic "code" made possible a transformation of the very concept of life, a transformation that often casts organisms as information systems.
With careful readings of key texts from the history of molecular biology--such as those of Erwin Schrodinger, George Gamow, Jacques Monod, and Francois Jacob--the author maps out the complex relations between the practices of rhetoric and the technoscientific triumphs they accompanied, triumphs that bolstered a "postvital" biology that increasingly elides and questions the boundary between organisms and machines.
There have been many popular books, and a few academic ones, on the Human Genome Initiatives. "On Beyond Living" is a genealogy of these initiatives, a map of how we have come to equate human beings with "information." Melding contemporary theory with scientific discourse, it is certain to provoke discussion (and controversy) in the fields of cultural studies, theory, and science with its penetrating inquiries into the relations between rhetoric and technoscience.

What do biologists study when they study "life" today? Drawing on tools from rhetoric and poststructuralist theory, the author argues that the ascent of molecular biology, with its emphasis on molecules such as DNA rather than organisms, was enabled by crucial rhetorical "softwares." Metaphors such as the genetic "code" made possible a transformation of the very concept of life, a transformation that often casts organisms as information systems.
With careful readings of key texts from the history of molecular biology--such as those of Erwin Schrodinger, George Gamow, Jacques Monod, and Francois Jacob--the author maps out the complex relations between the practices of rhetoric and the technoscientific triumphs they accompanied, triumphs that bolstered a "postvital" biology that increasingly elides and questions the boundary between organisms and machines.
There have been many popular books, and a few academic ones, on the Human Genome Initiatives. "On Beyond Living" is a genealogy of these initiatives, a map of how we have come to equate human beings with "information." Melding contemporary theory with scientific discourse, it is certain to provoke discussion (and controversy) in the fields of cultural studies, theory, and science with its penetrating inquiries into the relations between rhetoric and technoscience.

Victorian artist Richard Doyle (1824-1883) is famous for his charming illustrations of elves, fairies, and gnomes. For this coloring book, Marty Noble has skillfully adapted 29 of the English's artist's most delightful watercolors created for his book with Andrew Lang, "The Princess Nobody--A Tale of Fairyland. Now colorists and fairyland devotees can apply their own hues to enchanting scenes of fairies and elves at play, a mini-sized prince wooing a petite princess, mischievous sprites vexing a butterfly, and much more. Captions accompany each illustration. Dover Original. 29 black-and-white illustrations. Captions. 4 full-color illustrations on covers.

Celebrating and analyzing a landmark novel that is aberrant, obscene, and blasphemous, ""Naked Lunch"" was banned, ridiculed, and castigated on publication in 1959, and yet fifty years down the line it has lost nothing of its power to astonish and inspire. A lacerating satire, an exorcism of demons, a grotesque cabinet of horrors, and a landmark experiment in linguistic derangement, it is a work of ecstatic, excoriating laughter and great, transcendent beauty. The first book ever to take on William Burroughs' masterpiece, this critical collection brings together an international array of writers, scholars, musicians, scientists, and artists who cast new eyes on the writing and reception of Burroughs' unique work. Tracing its origins from Texas to Tangier, from Mexico City to New York and Paris, crossing time zones and cultures, ""Naked Lunch @ 50"" breaks new ground in understanding this most influential but elusive of texts. ""Naked Lunch @ 50"" includes studies of the text's manuscript and textual history, of its origins in and creative debts to a range of specific locations, of its reception in different societies over time and in relation to broader cultural, artistic, and personal histories. Contributors discuss the novel's existence as a physical object in regard to both design and collectability, the history of its critical reception, its cultural importance in relation to censorship and visionary art, its relationship to literary genres - from science fiction to the horror film - and its significance as a work prophetic of current trends in electronic culture and biology. A series of introductory sections, or 'Dossiers', written by Ian MacFadyen, provide glimpses of further horizons of research and reading, while a set of endpapers by the artist Philip Taaffe offers a visual correlative to Burroughs' extraordinary text.