12 RüdigerKunow
wide-ranging critique of Foucauldian biopower on exactly this point is
very much à propos here. In its focus on an independent somatic
existence and the role of body consciousness in knowledge and social
behavior, Shusterman is representative of a whole range of arguments
which all critique Foucault's rather mechanistic view of the biological
dimensionofhumanexistenceasmerelythepassivesubstratumforstate
power to act on. Focusing specifically on the position of the body in
Foucauldian theory, Shusterman charges that such arguments "reduce
thebodytoanexternalobject...[and]ignorethebody'ssubjectroleas
thelivingfocusofbeautiful,feltexperience"(28).Onemayquarrelwith
Shusterman'sbroadclaimthatthebiologyofthehumanbodymakesfor
beautiful experiences; still, his overall argument articulates a growing
consensus that the experiential realities of embodied life are not
adequately addressed by viewing them as a construction site like many
others.^9
DiscipliningBiology
Discipline, as Grant Farred has argued polemically, rests on
"foreclosure in the name of unity" (60). The various unities achieved in
the bio-sciences are not for me to pass judgment on—except for one
issuethatwillsurfacerepeatedlyin thisvolume:theirtendencytowards
generalization, to cover the multitudinous presence of embodied human
life under the abstract universality of averages, types, models. Against
this background,aCulturalStudiesapproachto thesamesubjectmatter
can act as a compensatory gesture, one that carves out a space for the
particular, contingent, individual. Of course this is making a rather
general claim for a widely diversified discipline whose "paradigm
dramas" (Wise 293) have been so intense that engaging them in
sufficientdetailwouldrequireasecondvolumeparalleltotheonethatis
presented here. This is also the reason why I will not offer a detailed
historical account of the theoretical concerns and productions of
(^9) Hardcore constructionists argue by and large that there is no such thing as a
humanbodyperseexceptforitsshapeshiftinglinguisticortextualpresence:"A
body analysed for humours contains humours; a body analysed for organs and
tissues is constituted by organs and tissues; a body analysed for psychosocial
functioningisapsychosocialobject"(Armstrong25).