196 RüdigerKunow
genetic thriller format, sometimes in serial form.^42 The specific content
orthescientificaccuracyofthesefictionsiscertainlylessimportantthan
their contribution to the overwhelming presence of biological topics in
contemporary U.S. culture (to which I will return in a separate chapter
below).
Biomedicineandbiotechnology,medicalgenetics,arefastbecoming
"one of the key sites for the fabrication of the contemporary self" (N.
Rose,PoliticsofLife111). This fabrication is indeed that, a fabrication,
a cultural process in which the norms of the market (efficiency, cost-
profit ratio) and of technical feasibility (enhancement, body design) are
invokedtoshapeandreshapeAmericans'understandingnotjustofwhat
the good life is but of what the normal life is. Addressing this process
would also be an answer to Judith Butler's polemical question: "How
does that materialization of the norm in bodily formations produce a
domain of abjected bodies, a field of deformation.. .?" (Ex citable
Speech15). The cultural imaginary in which these normativities and
their "aberrancies" find "their" representation will be the object of
analysisinthechapterstocome.Specifically,myfocuswillbedirected
at the cultural representations of genetic enhancements (in a separate
chapter), on the emerging market in the building blocks of human life
(organ and other trade), and on those non-normative life forms which
emerge as a result of the human life course (aging and old age) in this
chapter.
As has been repeatedly noted in these pages, the realm of human
biology has been long and intensely exhibited a disposition toward
normative regulation. Before addressing selected examples of this
biological normophilia in the chapters below, it is necessary to engage,
howeverbriefly,theoverallwiderangeofbiology-basednorms,asthey
impingeonthehumanbodyandhumanlifemoregenerally.Iwillbegin
with those normativities which are most prominent in our everyday
lifeworlds if for no other reason than because they "meet" the eye and
are positioned in the visible aspects of the human body which they
subjecttoculturalscrutiny.
(^42) Cf. the Robert Cavanaugh Genetic Thriller series or Katherine O'Neal Gear
and W. Michael Gear's four-volume cycle, beginning withThe Athena Factor
(2005);AmazonandGoodreadshavespecificlistsguidingreaders'choices.