Postgenomic Histories
Chapter 5 explores literary texts which develop postgenomic perspectives. Margaret Drabble’s novel-memoir The Peppered Moth mobilizes neo-Lamarckian theories to challenge neo-Darwinian views of inheritance. In tracing the experience of social defeat and its impact across generations, it invokes a process close to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, opening up questions about the biological transmission of social disadvantage. Jackie Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road also pushes against the limits of neo-Darwinian theory, demonstrating that nurture as well as nature can be somatically inscribed, anticipating research in epigenetics which demonstrates that experience can act as a cue for the modification of gene expression. It contrasts the love Kay receives in early life, which builds an enduring resilience, with the experience of racism associated with her brother’s adoption, which generates lasting insecurity. Catherine Malabou’s work on positive and negative plasticity illuminates these divergent trajectories.