CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 349
developed where the "science" component was made up largely of
popularizedtidbitsofgeneticresearch.^40
Ofcourse,theunderlyingideaofgenomicsinbothitslaboratoryand
pop-cultural contexts, namely that of the human body, of life itself, as
text, is not all that new.^41 However, in the wake of the genomic
revolution, the life-text-analogy has received additional and
incontrovertible authority in that it is promulgated by one of the most
advanced and powerful forms of human knowledge today, molecular
biology. In addition to involving the authority^42 and cultural prestige of
the sciences, the life-text-analogy involves also questions of
representation: if genes are seen as producing structures much as letters
and sentences are constructing a text,^43 if, in short, the basis of human
life is textually constituted, then wecan, even must, approach its result,
the corporerealities of the human body, not only as textually organized
by but also as containing textual information. This means that the
biologyofhumanliferepresentedin"molecularstorytelling"(Myers19)
can be approached much like people approach other texts: looking for
meaning, structure, perhaps even a plot, and of course a central
character.ThisisalsothereasonwhyonecanoccasionallyreadofDNA
storiesoreven"thepoeticsofDNA"(Roof).
(^40) Examples would be Octavia Butler's post-apocalypticLilith's Broodseries
(1987-2000) where an alien race can manipulate the building blocks of life or
JohnScalzi'sOldMan'sWarseries(2005-2015)whichexploitstheperspectives
openedbycloningforinter-galacticwarfare.
(^41) Conventionally,inWesternculturesatleast,theBibleisseenasthe"Bookof
Life." Even though Hinduism does not know one binding sacred text, it is
sometimessuggestedthattheVedasarea"BookofLife"ontheirownterms;in
Buddhism, theTibetanBookoftheDeadorBardoThodolis sometimes given a
similarstatus.
(^42) Thomas Couser has noted the spiritual overtones in references to genomic
phenomena. Thus, "the human genome is often referred to in terms more
appropriatefortexts,evensacredtexts,thanforthetinystripsofDNAofwhich
it actually exists" ("Genome and Genre" 185). Similarly, van der Weele writes
aboutthe"deepaura"ofgeneticknowledge(130).
(^43) This is sometimes viewed as a skewed analogy because genes are producing
"atextwithoutcontext"(NelkinandLindee56).