233 11 Nonhuman Biocitizens Lab Animals, Cruel Optimism, and the Politics of Death Marina Levina The ad is a simple one. A mother—gender made identifiable by a pink dress—is shopping with her son, gender coded by a blue and green T-shirt. In their shopping cart are tubes, air filters, and feeding supplies. The family is shopping for their home—a cage in a scientific laboratory. They are rats, and the ad is one of hundreds in Lab Animal, a monthly peer-reviewed journal for “professionals in animal research emphasiz- ing proper management and care.” Available by subscription only,1 Lab Animal publishes peer-reviewed research studies and editorial content and markets the production and acquisition of nonhuman animals for research and experiments.2 The magazine uses images to showcase ani- mal bodies in various states—as happy consumers, diligent research assistants, precious research subjects, and dissected cadavers. Through these bodies, the magazine communicates the multitude of cultural meanings assigned to scientific and biomedical work. The advertising in Lab Animal hails animal bodies as monuments; holds them up as saviors; observes them as precarious and vulnerable; and renders them active citizens in the laboratory. The journal, however, is also a func- tional memorial to the dead—images of dissected animals are in stark opposition to those happily shopping for their own cages. The juxtaposi- tion is a stunning testament to the various costs of scientific research. hroughout the journal, animal bodies are treated not simply as com- modities, even though they are oten represented as such, but rather as active collaborators in research and participants in their own sacri- ice. Lab Animal gives research animals a voice—not of resistance but rather of consent and participation. hrough an analysis of advertising images, research photos, and editorial content, I argue that the journal Happe_1p.indd 233 3/5/18 9:15 AM