Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I examine the material constitution of the category human within chimeric life forms. Chimeras, I argue, are foundational figures in biology, helping to establish ideas about what constitutes an organism and an individual.

Paper long abstract:

Chimeras are increasingly becoming an emblematic figure of post-genomic biology. This is because they represent genomic multitudes, defying conventional wisdom that there is only one genome in one organism (or body). In this paper, I examine the material constitution of the category human within chimeric life forms. To do this, the paper takes in a wide swath of chimeric life: from hydras pulled out of lakes near former Petrograd, to experimental mice in Wales, to the yet to be realized chimeras of translational medicine. My investigations are motivated by the observation that theoretical moves away from the human, and towards materiality, have been chronically uninterested in the material constitution of the human itself.

I seek to loosen the somewhat compelling grip that chimeric life has as liminal, monstrous and on the margins of life. Chimeras, I argue, are foundational figures in biology, helping to establish ideas about what constitutes an organism and an individual. To the story of the chimera, this paper replies with another story, that of the human research subject, which intends to undo the former. The material constitution of the category human at the cellular and molecular level, I suggest, should provoke a renewed interest in this supposedly settled domain. To turn away from this, may result in complicity, which can magnify, as opposed to undo the figure of the human as the central organizing figure of knowledge and morality in the twenty-first century.