Description
Book SynopsisStalinist Genetics focuses on the rhetoric of T. D. Lysenko, the founder of an agrobiological doctrine (Lysenkoism) in the Stalinist Soviet Union. Using not only scientific but also political and ideological arguments, Lysenko achieved an official ban on Soviet Mendelian genetics. Though the ban was brief and Lysenkoism, as a leading biological doctrine, was eventually deposed in favor of Mendelism, Lysenkoism remains a paradigmatic example of pernicious political interference in science. In this study, the critical orientation for reading Lysenko''s major speeches is constitutional rhetoric. It combines Kenneth Burke''s dialectic of constitutions and rhetoric of the subject. Painting a nuanced picture of intellectual, economic, ideological, and political life in the Soviet Union of the 1930s and 1940s, the book demonstrates how the rhetorics of Lysenkoism and Mendelism interacted with Stalinist culture in the fight for dominating Soviet science. The reader will learn how Lysenko''s co
Table of ContentsOverview
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
CHAPTER 2 Literature Review: Contradictions in Lysenkoism
CHAPTER 3 Critical Methodology
CHAPTER 4 Context of Lysenko’s 1936 and 1948 VASKhNIL Speeches
CHAPTER 5 Constitutional Rhetoric in Lysenko’s 1936 VASKhNIL Speech: Calling for the Enemy
CHAPTER 6 Constitutional Rhetoric in Lysenko’s 1936 VASKhNIL Speech: Dance of Ambiguity
CHAPTER 7 Constitutional Rhetoric in Lysenko’s 1948 Address to VASKhNIL: Laying Common Grounds for the Debate with the Geneticists
CHAPTER 8 Constitutional Rhetoric in Lysenko’s 1948 Address to VASKhNIL: Geneticists’ Use of Lysenko’s Terms
CHAPTER 9 Conclusion
References
Index
