Leonardo's Choice

Foundations, University of North Dakota, USA, Editor-in Chief, Green Theory and Praxis: the Journal of Ecopedagogy)

"Carol Gigliotti correctly identifies the fundamental nature of the cultural revolution under way as we integrate molecular biology and genetic enginering into both our self image and our view of our place in the web of life. For all of human history, we have interacted and modified the life forms with which we have contact or involve in for agriculture or daily life. This accelerating symbiotic interaction now threatens the ecologies within which life developed on earth, and will inevitably alter what it means to be human. Gigliotti, by looking in depth at the work of artists working today, shifts the focus and succesfully challenges our assumptions." -(Roger Malina, astrophysicist at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille CNRS, Interim Director of the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence and Executive Editor of the MIT Press Leonardo publications)

"Carol Gigliotti's powerful and timely volume exposes the myriad ways we control and exploit nonhuman animals through new biotechnologies. This book provides sharp critique of the anthropocentrism at the heart of science, capitalism, art and industry, placing the very real lives and deaths of our fellow beings at the heart of questions about ethics, progress and humanity. Leonardo's Choice is essential reading for scholars of critical animal studies, cultural studies, environmentalism, law and bioethics. It is also urgent reading for those who care about this planet and all the species who share it." - (Dr Annie Potts, School of Culture, Literature and Society, University of Canterbury, New Zealand and Co-Director of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies)

"At a time when most 'democratic' nations seem unwilling or incapable of providing broad civic fora for engaging with these issues, it has been left to critical theorists and artists to highlight the complex political and ethical questions raised by the intensified use of genetic technologies within our myriad human/animal relations. Leonardo's Choice represents an impressively diverse collection to do just that. Moreover when artists are entering the lab, and scientists are collaborating in bio-art, this book satisfies the need to interrogate the meanings of such boundary challenges - around both the dangers of capture and complicity, and the promises of critical scientific endeavour." -(Dr. Richard Twine, ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics, Lancaster University, UK)

"Leonardo's Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals is divided into three sections ... . book helps readers to understand more about the frightening and fascinating area of biotechnologies, and helps each of us to recognize the need for a personal change of conscience as a precursor to controlling and reforming biotechnologies. ... The many concrete examples ... helped me to think about connections between art and science, and to better understand precisely why ethics must be brought to bear on both of these runaway disciplines." (Lisa Kemmerer, Anthrozoös, Vol. 23 (4), 2010)