{"title":"Book Review: The radiance of France: nuclear power and national identity after World War II","authors":"S. Kirsch","doi":"10.1177/096746080100800211","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"children first. For they are targeted first, she claims, ‘when a dominant technoscientific culture becomes unsure of itself’, being constructed as ‘threatening and monstrous others out of virtual anxiety’ (p. 133). Given the anxiety provoked in the (dominatrix) subject vis-à-vis the (elusive) object, Kember maintains that masculinist medical science is attempting to have done with the object, its feminized other, through NITs and new reproductive technologies (NRTs) that will father themselves in a cycle of ‘autonomous reproduction’, a yearning found in Frankenstein, artificial intelligence and cloning. Since NITs and NRTs do not enable us to see social relations and their mediation differently, Kember employs a parodic figure that may: vampirism. Information is the new currency of exchange: ‘It is the life-blood of contemporary societies . . . turning us all into (metaphorical) vampires’ (pp. 134–5). Hence the recent transdisciplinary interest and anxiety about connection and contagion. What Kember adores in the figure of the vampire is that its ‘feminine desire’ is transgressive and transformatory; it effects afamilial and illicit connections. Vampires, like cyborgs, proffer a re-envisioning of social relations that is neither Frankensteinean nor sado-masochistic. They also foreground the interlacing of science and myth that ‘optical empiricism’ would rather disavow. Although quite short, the book is well written, wide-ranging and accessible. Most of the key ideas are laid out in the introduction and first couple of chapters, often with very effective examples. Thereinafter, the remaining chapters do not so much develop and sharpen these ideas as rehearse them with more expansive case studies. The occasional gems notwithstanding, this is a shame. I was also disappointed by the literary side of the study, which seemed to jar with the rest of the book. However, there is much here that will stimulate readers of this journal. It makes a valuable contribution to a host of timely debates.","PeriodicalId":104830,"journal":{"name":"Ecumene (continues as Cultural Geographies)","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2001-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ecumene (continues as Cultural Geographies)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/096746080100800211","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
children first. For they are targeted first, she claims, ‘when a dominant technoscientific culture becomes unsure of itself’, being constructed as ‘threatening and monstrous others out of virtual anxiety’ (p. 133). Given the anxiety provoked in the (dominatrix) subject vis-à-vis the (elusive) object, Kember maintains that masculinist medical science is attempting to have done with the object, its feminized other, through NITs and new reproductive technologies (NRTs) that will father themselves in a cycle of ‘autonomous reproduction’, a yearning found in Frankenstein, artificial intelligence and cloning. Since NITs and NRTs do not enable us to see social relations and their mediation differently, Kember employs a parodic figure that may: vampirism. Information is the new currency of exchange: ‘It is the life-blood of contemporary societies . . . turning us all into (metaphorical) vampires’ (pp. 134–5). Hence the recent transdisciplinary interest and anxiety about connection and contagion. What Kember adores in the figure of the vampire is that its ‘feminine desire’ is transgressive and transformatory; it effects afamilial and illicit connections. Vampires, like cyborgs, proffer a re-envisioning of social relations that is neither Frankensteinean nor sado-masochistic. They also foreground the interlacing of science and myth that ‘optical empiricism’ would rather disavow. Although quite short, the book is well written, wide-ranging and accessible. Most of the key ideas are laid out in the introduction and first couple of chapters, often with very effective examples. Thereinafter, the remaining chapters do not so much develop and sharpen these ideas as rehearse them with more expansive case studies. The occasional gems notwithstanding, this is a shame. I was also disappointed by the literary side of the study, which seemed to jar with the rest of the book. However, there is much here that will stimulate readers of this journal. It makes a valuable contribution to a host of timely debates.