An edition of Fables and futures (2019)

Fables and futures

biotechnology, disability, and the stories we tell ourselves

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Last edited by MARC Bot
June 18, 2025 | History
An edition of Fables and futures (2019)

Fables and futures

biotechnology, disability, and the stories we tell ourselves

  • 1 Want to read

From next-generation prenatal tests, to virtual children, to the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, new biotechnologies grant us unprecedented power to predict and shape future people. That power implies a question about belonging: which people, which variations, will we welcome? How will we square new biotech advances with the real but fragile gains for people with disabilitiesespecially when their voices are all but absent from the conversation? 0This book explores that conversation, the troubled territory where biotechnology and disability meet. In it, George Estreichan award-winning poet and memoirist, and the father of a young woman with Down syndromedelves into popular representations of cutting-edge biotech: websites advertising next-generation prenatal tests, feature articles on ́three-parent IVF,́ a scientist's memoir of constructing a semisynthetic cell, and more. As Estreich shows, each new application of biotechnology is accompanied by a persuasive story, one that minimizes downsides and promises enormous benefits. In this story, people with disabilities are both invisible and essential: a key promise of new technologies is that disability will be repaired or prevented. 0In chapters that blend personal narrative and scholarship, Estreich restores disability to our narratives of technology. He also considers broader themes: the place of people with disabilities in a world built for the able; the echoes of eugenic history in the genomic present; and the equation of intellect and human value. Examining the stories we tell ourselves, the fables already creating our futures, Estreich argues that, given biotech that can select and shape who we are, we need to imagine, as broadly as possible, what it means to belong.

Publish Date
Publisher
The MIT Press
Language
English
Pages
219

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Previews available in: English

Book Details


Table of Contents

Virtual children
The germline
At the fair
Human interests
The fine print
New Orleans
Reading Synthia
Dismissive narratives
Model worlds
Finding a place.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
660.6
Library of Congress
TP248.2 .E83 2019, TP248.2.E83 2019

The Physical Object

Pagination
xviii, 219 pages
Number of pages
219

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL27329615M
ISBN 10
0262039567
ISBN 13
9780262039567
LCCN
2018027592
OCLC/WorldCat
1041562266

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL20149871W

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