Author: Jack MacPhee

Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture focused on the techniques used to genetically classify people in India, many of which being very unethical and the process as a whole being very racist in nature. He gave other examples of this biological racism by showing images of a certain drug that was targeted at black males as if the drug would somehow perform differently when ingested into a black persons body as opposed to someone of a different racial background. He spoke on the idea of “genomic sovereignty” meaning that human genomic material is a valuable resource, for both the country and its people. Having the entire composition of the human genomes within your country and believing that they are not all 100% similar as a US scientist once suggested, gives both a symbolic and a material strength to the country. It does this by providing both a sense of belonging and community, as well as giving a representation of the population and their differences based on whatever demographic might be the case. However, the means by which these data are collected are sometimes, as with the India case, unethical and lack much regard for humanity.

This idea that you can perform genome sequencing on an entire nation to form a map of “collective bodies” as Mukharji calls them, is becoming a more prevalent idea in the present day thanks to improvements in technology. But the current methods of this genetic data acquisition are vastly different today than they were during the period Mukharji focused on. I recently read an article that spoke of a similar concept being played out in Iceland, but for a different purpose. There are talks in the scientific community that gene sequencing could be the future of medicine. It could help us locate genes that ultimately lead to higher risks of disease so we have time to treat them effectively, or locate genes that could give a carrier immunity to a disease or condition. In Iceland, researchers conducted a study in which over 2,000 residents had their genes sequenced. Iceland is a particularly good place to conduct a study like this due to its isolation: it is one of a few places with a founder effect. This means that the sample size used in the study can be scaled up to the whole population without much error, due to most residents being able to trace their genes back to a handful of ancestors. They have found genes that have been linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, to liver disease. The researchers hope that, one day, all human diversity will be able to explained through gene sequencing, and that our knowledge of disease and what causes someone to be predisposed to inherit or be resistant to it will greatly improve, if not be flawless in the future.

I find it incredibly interesting how much genes can tell us. Though it may have been an unethical practice at one time as far as how genetic information was collected in India as Mukharji’s talk showed, the information is invaluable today for scientists and doctors alike to make further strides in being able to save human lives.

During Nathan Hensley’s talk about the climate crisis and the force of literature, I found myself struggling to see the connections he was trying to make. Switching between the science realm and the literary fictional realm throughout the talk made it difficult for me to focus on the central point or look at the bigger picture. The likening of the original Alice in Wonderland story and our modern day environmental issues is certainly not a conventional comparison. But the more I thought about it following the lecture, the more this strange simile — as well as the point Hensley was trying to make — began to make sense.

The juxtaposition of Alice in Wonderland and the current climate situation was obviously just one of many that could have been made, but it is particularly good for Hensley’s argument in many respects. It offers a depiction of two separate worlds: the real world and the wonderland. Alice is abruptly thrown into the wonderland after previously being in the real world for her entire existence. This new world, she learns, does not behave or operate in the same way that the real world she knew did. She attempts to continue acting as though she were in the real world when in reality, she needs to curb her thinking and adapt to this new environment. This is what Hensley is using as a commentary on our current struggles with a changing environment and climate, and how we must adapt our mannerisms and ideas to best suit our new, changing world. We, as humans, continue to act in a way that put us at risk in the first place, and now that serious problems have started to rear their ugly heads, we are realizing that it was and is a mistake to act as though our environment has gone unchanged or has not been affected as a direct result of us. We now live in the Anthropocene, an era in which humans dominate the planet and have the power to save or destroy it. We have created our own separate wonderland, with cities and cars and boats and plastic, things not found in the natural, or rather, “real” world.

We have people outright rejecting the idea of climate change, ones that are blind to the temperature changes, rising oceans, changes in weather patterns, or people that simply don’t care about the environment because “it won’t affect them.” These are our modern-day Alices who, for whatever reason, refuse to change their ways to adapt to the new environment we have brought upon ourselves and the necessary actions we need to take to keep us from taking life as we know it away forever.

Although I had mixed feelings leaving his lecture, I have come to understand the parallels Nathan Hensley was attempting to shed light on between the forces of past literature and their presence in contemporary society and the climate crisis. The talk has introduced a new way of thinking to me that I will be sure to think about next time I crack open a piece of literature.