TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 139
interweavesecologicalandsocioeconomicanalysiswithamythictaleof
microbial battle over the fate of humanity.... It also accrues
contradictions: the obsolescence and tenacity of borders, the attraction
and threat of strangers, and especially the destructive and formative
power of contagion. It both acknowledges and obscures the interactions
andglobalformationsthatchallengenationalbelonginginparticular....
The outbreak narrative is a powerful story of ecological danger and
epidemiological belonging, and as it entangles analyses of disease
emergence and changing social and political formations, it affects the
experienceofboth.(Contagious33)WhatIfindespeciallyusefulaboutherconceptisthatitfocusesless
on specific content features than on what Louis Mink would call the
"configurational operation" (Mink 117) at work in a given disease
narrative: "The outbreak narrative manages the consequences, as it
makes sense of what the communicable disease makes visible"
(Contagious39) while doing justice to the interventionist dynamics
involvedindiseaseoutbreaks.
In whatfollows,I willoffermyownoverview ofnarrativizationsof
mass disease, not aiming at a correction of Wald's concept so much but
rather directing attention to formats in which the management qualities
sheisspeakingofaresquaredoffagainstthepublicnatureofthedisease
and where its presence in the public sphere plays an important role and
forthisreasonisopentotheanalyticsofculturalcritique.Ofcourse,this
brief overview does not aim at providing a complete inventory of
infectiousdiseasenarratives.
"DarkInvaders":TheMilitaryResponseNarrative
Amongthebest-known,andalsooneoftheoldest,diseasenarrative
formats is the hostile invasion story. From time immemorial, this
narrative format has scripted diseases but especially infectious diseases
as coming from the outside—outside here understood in spatial as well
as social and cultural terms. Biological pathogens, the disease itself, or
its carriers are configured as invaders, even silent, sneaky ones,
mounting an assault against which all defenses must be mobilized.
Historically, when word got out about an approaching plague or the