Theorising Biocitizenship, 1550-1660

生物公民理论，1550-1660

• 批准号: 2279202
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2279202
• 关键词: Theorising; Biocitizenship; 1550; 1660

"First presented in Petryna's 2002 work on relations between the Ukrainian government and citizens affected by the Chernobyl disaster, the idea of "biological citizenship" has been used by scholars to scrutinise "the relationship between politics, identity, and biology" (Cooter, 2008). While literature on biocitizenship attends exclusively to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, some of its foundational ideas have roots in an early modern epistemology: ideas of bodily commonality or exclusivity, of rights and power based on biology, and anxieties over figures which transgress a biological norm. Biocitizenship asks how and where rights are understood to inhere in or be created through biological commonality and difference. This makes it a productive tool for examining a period of flourishing zoological knowledge and anatomical study, when the exceptional position of man was the subject of intense debate, as Fudge, Raber, Boehrer and Thomas have shown. My reading to date has moved outwards from anthropology, drawing together authors including Haraway, Agamben and Foucault to distil a definition of biocitizenship appropriate to early modern material. Taking inspiration from Enenkel's work on early modern taxonomy, the first section of my thesis examines how early moderns identified and discriminated among their fellow biocitizens. The chapter investigates texts which categorise and collect, from natural history encyclopaedias such as Topsell's Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (1607), to anatomical textbooks and previously unstudied visual compendia where assorted human, animal and plant life mingles chaotically on the page. The second section investigates instances of non-human animals participating in discussions about their existence. Howell's neglected dialogue, Therologia (1660), is a compelling example of the voices brought to imaginative life in debates over sublunary citizenship. Based on classical and humanist precursors, which I will explore in detail, Howell's text is an extended discussion of human exceptionalism. I will examine this text alongside predecessors which invoke talking animals, including Baldwin's Beware the Cat (1553) and Gascoigne's The Noble Arte of Venerie (1575). In each text, techniques of identification and discrimination are transformed through fiction into debates over physical and political kinship. Having examined attempts at taxonomy and mastery, and creative interpellations of animal voices, the final section of my thesis will open out to staged disruptions of the boundary between rational man and the natural world. A contentious point of distinction between man and animal, rationality is a crucial factor in theorising early modern biocitizenship. Informed by Kristeva's Powers of Horror, Rhodes' Elizabethan Grotesque and Miller's The Anatomy of Disgust, I explore that which reason opposes: madness and filth. Shannon & Höfele have written incisive explorations of the natural world in King Lear, but neither acknowledges the role Lear's mental deterioration plays in his relationship to nature. This section's focus on the malfunction of a distinctly human quality picks up on the theme of decay in other key sources, including the work of Marston, which displays a striking interest in the innards, fluids, & filth of human existence. These destabilising encounters with animality generate a darker version of the early modern biocitizen, which works antagonistically to traditional perceptions of Renaissance man, positing a base and infectious humanity: a biocitizenry repulsed by itself. The dynamics of biocitizenship can be felt within a host of early modern literatures; my thesis demonstrates that the concept has applications beyond our contemporary world. My fiercely interdisciplinary project argues for an early modern biocitizenship in which human isolation & exile persist alongside forms of connectedness & an expanded sense of biological commonality which presents both risk & reward.

在Petryna 2002年关于乌克兰政府与受切尔诺贝利灾难影响的公民之间关系的研究中，“生物公民”的概念首次被提出，学者们用它来审视“政治、身份和生物之间的关系”（Cooter, 2008）。虽然关于生物公民的文献只关注20世纪和21世纪，但它的一些基本思想植根于早期现代认识论：关于身体共性或排他性的思想，基于生物学的权利和权力的思想，以及对违反生物规范的人物的焦虑。生物公民权的问题是，权利如何以及在哪里被理解为固有的或通过生物共性和差异而产生的。这使得它成为一种有效的工具，可以用来研究一个动物学知识和解剖学研究蓬勃发展的时期，正如福吉、拉伯、勃勒和托马斯所表明的那样，在那个时期，人类的特殊地位是激烈辩论的主题。到目前为止，我的阅读已经从人类学向外延伸，汇集了包括哈拉威、阿甘本和福柯在内的作者，提炼出一个适合早期现代材料的生物公民的定义。从Enenkel关于早期现代分类学的工作中获得灵感，我的论文的第一部分研究了早期现代人如何识别和歧视他们的同胞生物公民。这一章调查了分类和收集的文本，从自然历史百科全书，如托普塞尔的《四足动物的历史》（1607），到解剖学教科书和以前没有研究过的视觉概要，其中各种各样的人类，动物和植物生命在页面上混乱地混杂在一起。第二部分调查了非人类动物参与讨论其存在的实例。Howell被忽视的对话，神学（1660），是一个引人注目的例子，在关于地下公民身份的辩论中，声音被带入了想象的生活。基于古典主义和人文主义的先驱者，我将详细探讨，豪厄尔的文本是对人类例外论的扩展讨论。我将把这篇文章与引用会说话的动物的前辈们一起研究，包括鲍德温的《当心猫》（1553）和加斯科因的《威尼斯的高贵艺术》（1575）。在每一篇文章中，识别和歧视的技巧都通过小说转化为关于身体和政治亲属关系的辩论。在研究了分类和掌握的尝试，以及对动物声音的创造性解释之后，我论文的最后一部分将开始讨论对理性人和自然世界之间界限的阶段性破坏。作为人类和动物之间有争议的区别，理性是早期现代生物公民理论的一个关键因素。通过Kristeva的《恐怖的力量》，Rhodes的《伊丽莎白怪诞》和Miller的《厌恶的解剖》，我探索了理性所反对的东西：疯狂和污秽。香农和Höfele在《李尔王》中对自然世界进行了深刻的探索，但他们都没有承认李尔王的精神衰退在他与自然的关系中所起的作用。本节关注的是明显的人类品质的故障，并在其他关键来源中选择了腐烂的主题，包括马斯顿的作品，他对人类存在的内部，流体和污垢表现出了惊人的兴趣。这些与动物的不稳定接触产生了早期现代生物公民的黑暗版本，它与文艺复兴时期人类的传统观念背道而驰，提出了一种基础的、具有传染性的人性：一种被自身排斥的生物公民。生物公民的动态可以在许多早期现代文献中感受到；我的论文表明，这一概念的应用超出了我们的当代世界。我的跨学科项目主张早期现代生物公民，在这种公民中，人类的隔离和流亡与各种形式的联系和扩大的生物共同性并存，既存在风险也存在回报。