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7 - Reading the genes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

Rob Withers
Affiliation:
Lecturer University College, Scarborough
Richard Ashcroft
Affiliation:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
Anneke Lucassen
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
Michael Parker
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Marian Verkerk
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Guy Widdershoven
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
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Summary

Lost in space: in place of an introduction

I cannot begin at the beginning. Yet children in primary school now learn that every text must have an appropriate beginning. A fairy story opens, comfortingly, ‘Once upon a time …’. What is missed and not taught is the corollary: the opening sentences and the way in which the writing develops from there (the texture) fashions the kind of text produced. So when I now say that I cannot articulate my philosophical approach at the start of this chapter, I am already shaping the material in a particular style.

I can appreciate why the editors have called for an introduction. They wish me to explain my method. They wish to assist you, Gentle Reader. But I cannot begin there because that is not where I am and I do not see the way ahead with such clarity, yet it must be because it was as ‘I would prefer not to’ work in this way that I was invited to contribute. This is because of my resistance (the significance of the word in this context should become clearer in the course of this chapter) to use the very model we have all been schooled in. Will I nevertheless satisfy the expectation that in this chapter my writing will exemplify a post-structuralist approach?

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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References

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