Abstract
In popular biographies, Elvis Presley appears as a genetic construct, driven by his genes to his unlikely destiny. He has succeeded, the story goes, because of his genetic heritage — and failed because of his family’s history of inbreeding. Elaine Dundy, for example, attributes Presley’s success to the qualities of will, ambition, and fantasy passed down to him from his mother’s multi-ethnic family.1 Dundy traces Elvis’s musical talents to his father who “had a very good voice” and his mother who had “the instincts of a performer.” They did provide a musical environment, she notes, but “even without it, one wonders if Elvis, with his biological musical equipment would not still have become a virtuoso.”
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Notes and References
Elaine Dundy, Elvis and Gladys (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985). p.26. See also discussion in Greil Marcus, Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
Albert Goldman, Elvis, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981). p. 57. See also discussion in Greil Marcus, Dead Elvis, 1991.
Deborah Franklin, “What A Child is Given,” New York Times Magazine, September 3, 1989. p. 36.
“Oprah Winfrey Show,” CBS, August 24, 1992.
JFK, Warner Bros, 1991.
James O. Jackson, “The New Germany Flexes Its Muscles,” Time, April 13, 1992. p. 34.
Maria Newman, “Raising Children Right Isn’t Always Enough,” New York Times, December 22, 1991.
Tainted Blood, USA Channel, March 3, 1993.
Fox Butterfield, “Studies Find a Family Link to Criminality,” New York Times, January 31, 1992.
Richard Hutton and George Page “The Mind/The Brain Classroom Series,” PBS Video, 1992.
Donahue Show, February 25, 1993. The program was described in John Horgan, “Eugenics Revisited,” Scientific American. June 1993, p. 123.
Daniel Koshland, “Elephants, Monstrosities, and the Law,” Science, 255, February 14, 1992, p. 777.
Quoted in Anastasia Toufexis, “Seeking the Roots of Violence,” Time, April 19, 1993, pp. 52–3.
National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Understanding and Preventing Violence, National Academy Press, November 1992.
Fox Butterfield, New York Times, November 13, 1992.
Toufexis, “Seeking the Roots…,” 1993.
See Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddle of Culture (New York: Random House, 1974); D.P. Barash, The Whisperings Within (New York, Harper and Row, 1979); and Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York: Bantam, 1967).
JeffreyGoldstein, The Seville Statement on Violence, November 1990.
The Seville Statement and list of signatories is included in Anne E. Hunter, ed., Genes and Gender VI: On Peace, War and Gender (New York: The Feminist Press, 1991) pp. 168–171.
Jeffrey Goldstein, The Seville Statement on Violence, November 1990, p. 41.
Sheila B. Blume, M.D., “The Disease Concept of Alcoholism, 1983,” Journal of Psychiatric Treatment and Evaluation, 5, pp. 417–478. She traces the modern conception of alcoholism as a disease back to Benjamin Rush and notes its subsequent history.
George Nobbe, “Alcoholic Genes,” Omni, May 1989. p.37.
Shifra Diamond, “Drinking Habits May be in The Family,” Mademoiselle, August 1990. p. 136.
Editorial, “Just Blame Genes — of Disease,” Christian Science Monitor, May 22, 1991.
Daniel Goleman, “Scientists Pinpoint Brain Irregularities In Drug Addicts,” New York Times, June 26, 1990.
Richard C. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology (New York: Harpers, 1992) p.51.
Bruce Weber, “Chess Moves are Planned, Birthdays Happen,” New York Times, August 5, 1992.
NBCNews Special, “Kids and Stress,” April 25, 1988.
David Gelman, “The Miracle of Resiliency,” Newsweek Special Issue. Summer 1991. pp. 44–47.
Barbara Delatiner, “For Brothers, Poetry is in Their Genes,” New York Times, May 26, 1991.
Mervyn Rothstein, “Isaac Asimov, Whose Thoughts and Books Traveled the Universe, Is Dead at 72,” New York Times, April 7, 1992, p.B7.
Diane Cole, “The Entrepreneurial Self,” Psychology Today, June, 1989, p. 60.
Maria Terrone and Sharon Johnson, “Fashion’s Nature Vs. Nurture Debate Or, Is Good Taste in the Genes?” New York Times, April 12, 1992, advertising section.
Peter Costello, James Joyce: The Years of Growth (New York: Pantheon, 1993); Christopher Lehmann-Haupt observed the focus on genetics in a review in the New York Times, April 8, 1993.
Mirabella, January 1993. The bottle pictured in some ads for Bijan’s DNA has the amazing shape of a triple helix.
Calvin Klein ad, quoted in Anne Fausto-Sterling, Myths of Gender (New York: Basic Books, 1985). p. 7.
Edwin Diamond, “Can You Change a Magazine’s DNA?” New York Magazine, July 20, 1992. p. 27.
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“Today Show,” NBC, October 21, 1992.
Scott Hamilton, “Olympic Women’s Ice Skating Competition,” CBS Olympic Coverage, February 21, 1992.
“Michael Speaks,” Ebony, May 1992, p. 40.
William Safire, “Dollie and Johnny,” New York Times, September 7, 1992.
Barbara Spector, “The Love of Science: Do Parents Pass It Along to Their Children? ” The Scientist, 5, September 30, 1991, p. 1.
Anthony Lewis, “Politics and Decency,” New York Times, April 4, 1991, opinion/ editorial section.
Lawrence Wright, “The Man from Texarkana,” New York Times Magazine, June 28, 1992.
Steven A. Holmes, “For Buchanan Aide, Genetic Conservatism,” New York Times, February 7, 1992.
Alessandra Stanley, “When Ms. Right Falls for (Gasp!) Mr. Left,” New York Times, April 20, 1992. p. A1.
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: The Free Press, 1994).
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Nelkin, D., Lindee, M.S. (1999). Good Genes and Bad Genes. In: Fortun, M., Mendelsohn, E. (eds) The Practices of Human Genetics. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4718-7_7
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