CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 347
has not only constructed a whole new semiotic system for the human
bodybutithasdonemore,offeredawholenewexplanationforlife.
Henceitisnotanemptyverbalismtosaythatgenomicsismorethan
"mere science." For all the complexity of the biological processes
involved, mapping the human genome has by now clearly become an
unavoidable point of reference also in social and cultural contexts. One
might even add here that it has begun to re-organize human life also on
the political level: human bodies are increasingly understood as
embedded, no longer (or least not exclusively) in nation-centric but in
"genocentric"frameworks(Keane473;Rouveroy99).^35 (Re)Writingthe
"Book of Life" is thus, as we will see below, at least potentially, a new
typeofnationalistproject.
FindingaTextfortheBookofLife
The new semantics of human life instituted by genomics present a
challenge not only for those seeking to understand the new science but
also for those interested in the scientists themselves. As an innovative
and highly complex scientific practice, the "muted liveliness" of life on
the genetic level has created, even among the researchers involved, the
need for a sign system which can transmit, for their own interior
communication,theintricacieswithwhichtheyaredealing.Andindeed,
thehistoryofbiologicalresearchonthemolecularlevelisaccompanied
by a techno-poetics of its own. The "analogies and anthropomorphisms
that [genetic] modelers use" (Myers 5) are testimony to how intensely
scientistswerelookingforconceptualanalogiestomapthenewrealities
they were discovering. Probably inspired by Erwin Schrödinger'sWhat
Is Life?(1944) with its description of the hereditary process as "some
kindofcode-script"(qtd.inGarcía-Sancho115),aninformalagreement
was slowly forming among genetic/genomics researchers according to
whichgenescametobeseenasbiologicalphenomenawhichcodifyand
communicate information,^36 much of it encrypted; hence the talk about
(^35) Suchanassessmentbypassespossibleusesofgenomicsofnationalistprojects,
astheexampleofapresumedChinagenomedemonstrates.
(^36) As Natasha Myers notes, today "biology is being lauded as an information
science" (9) but adds that "the vision that flattened of life into thin threads of