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Where Does a Body Begin? Biology’s function in contemporary capitalism (2025)



by M.Y.B.


Metadata

       Dimensions: 11x18cm
       Binding: Perfect Bound 
       Pages: 111pp.
       ISBN: 978-9925-8118-4-7
       Paper: 300g/m2 Bilderdruck Matt &  80g/m2 Munken White
      Language: English
       Released: October 2025 (3rd Edition)

       Author: MeltdownYourBooks (M.Y.B.)
       Translation & Editing: Nicholas E. Powers
       Art & Design: Rachel Lilim
       Layout & Typography: Polymnia Tsinti

About



While presented as a contiguous work, the book is formed of different essays that have been dissected, recomposed with artificial connective tissue. The result lies somewhere between the rhizomatic continuity of a Body-without-Organs, and the disjointed assemblage of roadkill; either way, the question of where to even begin remains the same. 
        These essays each grow out of a particular resentment that developed through years of experience as a working-student of biology, but the task of the book was to transform this into something productive, something that sticks granular propositions into Biology like acupuncture needles. Inherent sexism within Biological research is, after all, not entirely disconnected to Pharmaceutical giants flooding the streets with opiates—and it is simply a writer’s hope that some well positioned words can remind enough people of how its all connected.  
        In what could be perceived as a philosophical turn, the importance of talking about science, as much as doing it, is re-entering the popular scientific consciousness, and it is high time, too. What was already getting bad under Biden, became catastrophic under Trump, and the infiltration into public research by private institutions and capitalist enterprises, which this book highlights, is proving dire. The capitalisation of all things bio, whether -yoghurt, -metric data or -logical institutions, is necrotic—MeltdownYourBooks didn’t flinch, they just grabbed the scalpel, dowsed the flesh in ethanol, and asked the question we all forget needs answering: where first, Doc?

In this book, we don’t do biology, or fund it, or research it, or practice it; in this book, we are biology.