TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 153
another, and often work in combination.^99 What they do have in
common, and what deserves attention from cultural critique, are two
related points: First, they illustrate the degree to which narrative
constructionsofepidemicsareresourcedby,andintheirturn,offernew
materialforexistingculturalmodelsandnarrativesnotoriginallyrelated
to the medical issues. Secondly, they are acts of imagining a
community—something that has become rather rare in U.S. pop culture
today—more especially an imagined community with an equally
imagined,henceideological,immunity.^100
And this brings us back to a question briefly addressed above,
namely that of narrative not as content but as form. To follow a
narrative,asPaulRicoeurhasinsisted,"istomoveforwardinthemidst
of contingencies under the guidance of an expectation that finds its
fulfillment in the conclusion of the story," namely that it makes sense
(Time and Narrative1: 66). This idea, when played off against the
contingencies of a biological mass event, takes us to a domain which
might be called theideology of narrative, more precisely, perhaps, the
ideology of disease narrative. What is ideological about such narratives
is not their respective content so much but their reliance on the one-
after-the-otherofnarrativetoprovidesenseandclosuretothecollective
crisis. Hayden White has repeatedly warned us against such an
ideological (re)solution, against the allure of narrative where "reality
wears the mask of meaning, the completeness and fullness of which we
canonlyimagine,neverexperience"("Value"20).
ImaginedImmunitiesforImaginedCommunities
Organizing the preceding analysis around encounters between
biology and mobility has been both a thematic concern and a critical
gesture, the latter designed to contest the often facile absorption of the
natural into the linguistic in much contemporary critique. For the
materialistalternativetosuchacritique,thediscussionsofarhasshown
that infectious or communicable diseases have multiplier effects that
(^99) Forexample,militarymetaphorsalsoaboundinM.Crosby(A mericanPlague
45,78,92,198,206).
(^100) ThewordplayisWald'sContagious(29).