The Cinematic Life of the Gene

Jackie Stacey is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester. She is the author of "Star Gazing: Female Spectators and Hollywood Cinema" and "Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer"; co-author of "Global Nature, Global Culture"; and co-editor of several books, including "Queer Screen: A "Screen "Reader," "Thinking through Skin," and "Romance Revisited." Stacey is an editor of the journals "Screen" and "Feminist Theory."

"The Cinematic Life of the Gene is the best work yet by one of the major feminist film theorists of our time. It is an exhilarating read as well as a fabulous contribution to the crossover area between film theory and science studies."--Lisa Cartwright, author of Moral Spectatorship: Technologies of Voice and Affect in Postwar Representations of the Child "In this fascinating book, Jackie Stacey identifies parallels between the cinema's aesthetic of imitation and artifice and that of genetic engineering. From this premise, she skillfully and imaginatively gives new life and relevance to feminist analyzes of, for instance, masquerade and the femme fatale in relation to the perfectly beautiful clone as unreadable, threatening, and enigmatic. While avoiding any abrupt break between the 'pre' and the 'post,' Stacey's reflections on the contiguous crises represented by the rapid recent developments in genetic engineering and the appearance of digital imaging are among her most thought-provoking. This is an elegantly written and lucidly argued book that will make an extremely valuable contribution to contemporary film and cultural theory."--Laura Mulvey, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Birkbeck, University of London