238 RüdigerKunow
late life non-normativity that is the very obverse of that in gerontology.
While for the latter, late life is more or less not normal (if compared
with earlier stages of the life course), Age Studies is trying to win
recognition and respect for an expanded and inclusive notion of what is
"normal" in human life. Such an expansion is also at issue in recent
developmentswhichwillbedetailedinthenextchapter
''NewAge''?LateLifeandthePromisesofMolecularBiology
Thecategory"age"derivesmuchofitspersuasivenessfromitsstark
contrastwithyouth.Fromaviewpointinformedbydialectics,onemight
well argue that "age" would not exist without this contrast and,
inversely,that"youth"wouldbe,medicallyandculturally,unimaginable
withoutthespecterof"age."Thedichotomybetween"old"and"young"
and the systems of interpretation and normalization resting on it is
probably as old as humankind's reflections on the life course and its
temporality, and for this reason there is no need to repeat it here.
Instead, I will in this brief chapter follow up the proposition that this
dichotomy is no longer as absolute as it has for a long time seemed to
be—which is likely to have enormous consequences for what is seen as
"normal"inlatelife.
Since World War II and especially during the last decades, a new
player has entered the field of the cultural construction of "age":
molecular biology. The mapping of the human genome (declared
complete in 2003), in tandem with breakthroughs in the biotechnical
sector, have fundamentally changed our understanding of human life,
including in its later stages. The most noteworthy aspect of such
findingsfromtheculturalcriticalpointofviewseemstobethatbiology
once again appears in the guise of destiny: "genes 'R us," as one might
put it, and we cannot choose the set we get or don't get. This time,
however, biology is destiny with a trap door of sorts. The promise
contained in molecular biology is thatover time,and sooner rather than
later, it will offer a new kind of tool kit to deal with degenerative
processes associated with bodily aging caused by age-relevant genes
(seethechapteron"SomaticsandSemantics,"below).
The ascendency of biology among older age-related scientific
inquiries is by no means an isolated process or a historical coincidence.
Rather, it is implicated in larger socio-historical power shifts which