9321136 Rabinow Biotechnology is rapidly revolutionizing biology. New techniques promise to cure disease and alter genes of plants, animals, and ultimately of humans themselves. Fears of these humanly engineered species have led American opponents to attempt to block sales of genetically altered foods in supermarkets. "Animal rights" activists have also sought to halt manipulation of animal genes. An important topic for Science and Technology Studies is to examine the ways biotechnology has affected societies around the world. Under the direction of Professor Rabinow, Soren Germer is examining the recent German controversy over a patent on a transgenic mouse, the Harvard oncomouse. The goal of this project is to document the social and cultural repercussions of contemporary biotechnology in a concrete case and a specific national setting. Two questions frame this research: How has the oncomouse, as a tangible product of modern biotechnology, affected contemporary German ideas and practices concerning the relationship between humans and animals? and, What are the particular characteristics of the German development and reception of recent biotechnology? Mr. Germer is conducting 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Munich, Germany, with the main adversaries in the oncomouse controversy -- a group of biotechnology critics, a group of geneticists, and various patent lawyers -- in order to chart their conflicting beliefs and practices. He is exploring local competing perspectives on the relationship between humans and animals, on science and technology, and on culture and nature. The way we classify, think, and treat animals plays an important role in how we define ourselves as humans. This dissertation contributes to the analysis of late- modern German cultural identity as it is reshaped by the radical changes which science presents. ***
