Television and the Genetic Imaginary, 1st ed. 2019 Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture Series

This book examines the complex ways in which television articulates ideas about DNA in the early 21st century. Considering television?s distinct aesthetic and narrative forms, as well as its specific cultural roles, it identifies TV as a key site for the genetic imaginary. The book addresses the key themes of complexity and kinship, which function as nodes around which older essentialist notions about the human genome clash with newly emergent post-genomic sensibilities. Analysing a wide range of US and UK programmes, from science documentaries, science fiction serials and crime procedurals, to family history programmes, sitcoms and reality shows, Television and the Genetic Imaginary illustrates the extent to which molecular frameworks of understanding now permeate popular culture.  

1. Introduction: A cultural forum on genetics.- Part I: Complexity.- 2. Microscopic CGI: Imaging molecular worlds.- 3. Complex seriality: Genetic science as narrative device.- Part II: Kinship.- 4. Genealogical intimacy: Materialising genetic kinship.- 5. TV families: Normalising assisted reproduction.- Part III.- 6. Epilogue: Television clones.

Constitutes the first book-length study of genetic discourses on television Engages with a wide range of highly popular television programmes from the last two decades, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, House M.D., The Human Body, Heroes, Who Do You Think You Are?, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Friends and Orphan Black Offers an interdisciplinary study of interest to both television studies and the medical humanities