TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 143
collective, the universal, and the particular. The "generalized crisis
environment" (Massumi, ''Emergency'' 153) which determines such
narrativesisasthetalemovesonparticularized,oftenrigorouslyso:the
abstract virulence of a malign biological agent is contained in the
narrative by making it the "property" of a group of persons whose
identificationas"offensiveinvader"(Markel,"Reflections"24)posinga
biomedicalthreat,thenonceagaingeneralizescollectivesbysuggesting
that all persons in this group are alike, spreaders of dangerous biotic
material. In this circular structure, these people get endowed with an
excess of meaning, an excess often represented by recourse to the
narrative apparatus of the sentimental novel or of melodrama. The
persons infected are not just ill but infected with malicious intent, like
the Chinese in San Francisco who, seeking to elude medical control,
willfullyendangeredthelivesofthecity'stotalpopulation.Muchofthis
mechanism manifested itself also in the early moments of the HIV-
AIDS crisis when the public debated the issue of contaminated blood
donations infecting people outside the known risk groups and produced
theculturalsubjectpositionof"innocentvictims."Thissubjectposition,
represented in the pivotal 1989 ABC biopicTheFate ofRyanWhite, a
hemophiliac teenager who died from a contaminated blood treatment,
thencreatedasocio-culturalopeningwhichmadepossibletheascription
of "culpable biographies" of the Mary Mallon type to HIV-AIDS
victims.
Byinsertingthecontingenciesofhumanbiologyintothetemporality
of an unfolding threat scenario, this story format moreover offers
something to the reader which Ricoeur identified as the humanizing
potentialofnarrative,namely to "projectin themodeoffictionwaysof
inhabiting the world" (Time and Narrative2: 5). There is clearly an
ideologicaldimensiontoboththemilitaryinvasionformatandRicoeur's
assessment. This ideological element is not exhausted by the
scapegoating of certain groups,which is a trademark of this format, but
manifests itself also in the sublimation of utter contingency into a
seconddegreeorder,eitherrepresentedinthenarrativeorbyit.
BiomedicalJeremiads,or,HowHavetheRevelersFallen
The onsetof a massdisease is often perceived by contemporaries as
an irruption into the status quo (the Goethian "unerhörte Begebenheit"),