TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 119
Publicopinionforgedinthecrucibleofamedicalcrisismayberight
orwrongasfaras"thefacts"areconcerned,itmayalsowaverandeven
revise itself; what matters is that it is the product of communicative
interaction and thus in essence cultural rather than biological. In the
understanding of the Frankfurt School which is shared here, the public
sphere is the principal arena where interpretation and information (of
whatever kind and credibility) concerning a given dangerous disease
circulate and where the debate about the proper way to address this
crisis is conducted. In this way, and through this conduit, diseases, and
especially infectious mass diseases, become the object of public
semiosis.Such a semiosis is a principally open-ended process which
is—as the following narrative is intended to show—resourced by
cultural archives and anxieties over which neither the individuals
affected nor a coterie of medical or other experts can exercise control.
With a nod to the post-9/11 United States, it might be even added that
the idea of "a public sphere in the North that might be invaded by
outside infection.. ." (Albertini 449) with biological pathogens has
during the last decades become a favorite imaginative representation of
all the dangers threatening the country (Mitchell 8, 20, 74). Especially
the specter of terrorism has often taken on more concrete form when it
becamesynonymouswithbio-terrorismandfearsofa"dirtybomb"(M.
Cooper74-100).
"Fearsaboutasinglepublicspherethatmightbeinvadedfromsome
outside" (Albertini 451) are, however, not the singular cultural
pathologyofthecontemporaryUnitedStates.Theywerearoundevenat
times when a public sphere was just barely existing in its earliest
tentative forms. Sophocles'sOidipousTyrannos(Oedipus the King, ca.
429-425BCE)usesanepidemicasaplotdevicetokickstarthisversion
of the myth about a hero who, in seeking to escape the decree of the
gods, ends up fulfilling it. In the opening scene a priest invokes the
medicalemergencywhichhasbeenvisitingthecityofThebes:
Ablightisonthefruitfulplantsoftheearth.
Ablightisonthecattleinthefields,
ablightisonourwomenthatnochildren
areborntothem;aGodthatcarriesfire,
adeadlypestilence,isonourtown,
strikesusandsparesusnot,andthehouseofCadmus