Life, time, and the organism: temporal registers in the construction of life forms

Berry, Dominic J. ORCID: 0000-0001-6276-0951 and Palladino, Paolo (2018) Life, time, and the organism: temporal registers in the construction of life forms. Journal of the History of Biology, 52 (2). pp. 223-243. ISSN 0022-5010

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Abstract

In this paper we articulate how time and temporalities are involved in the making of living things. For these purposes, we draw on an instructive episode concerning Norfolk Horn sheep. We attend to historical debates over the nature of the breed, whether it is extinct or not, and whether presently living exemplars are faithful copies of those that came before. We argue that there are features to these debates that are important to understanding contemporary configurations of life, time, and the organism, especially as these are articulated within the field of synthetic biology. In particular, we highlight how organisms are configured within different material and semiotic assemblages that are always structured temporally. While we identify three distinct structures, namely the historical, phyletic, and molecular registers, we do not regard the list as exhaustive. We also highlight how these structures are related to the care and value invested in the organisms at issue. Finally, because we are interested ultimately in ways of producing time, our subject matter requires us to think about historiographical practice reflexively. This draws us into dialogue with other scholars interested in time, not just historians, but also philosophers and sociologists, and into conversations with them about time as always multiple and never an inert background.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://link.springer.com/journal/10739
Additional Information:	© 2018 The Authors
Divisions:	Economic History
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Date Deposited:	11 Apr 2018 08:50
Last Modified:	18 Apr 2024 07:33
Projects:	657750, 616510-ENLIFE
Funders:	European Union's Horizon 2020, European Research Council
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/87426

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