350 RüdigerKunow
I want to suggest here that the conceptual analogy between biology
and textuality culminating in the "Book of Life"-motif should not be
understoodmerelyasaheuristicdevice.Rather,ithasbeenbuildingyet
anotherofthemanybridgesbetween nature and culture whichform the
subject matter of this study. If organic life is imagined as theopus
magnumofgenes,this conceptualanalogyamountsto nothinglessthan
a "culturalizing" of genes and the whole panoply of biotechnological
procedures based on its operations—Nelkin and Lindee and more
recently Siddartha Mukherjee have hightlighted the cultural iconicity
and power of genes. Its culturalization in a further step opens up
genomics to interrogation by cultural critique and its disciplinary
commitment"tofindwaysofrethinkingimaginationitself,ofrethinking
whatitmeanstoanalyzeaconjunctureinwaysthatopenupthepresent
tootherfutures,toother'possible'actualities"(Grossberg94).Grossberg
may have had ethno-political futures in mind but there is probably no
field of human inquiry that is so much concerned with opening up
futures than genomics and its practical application field, biotechnology,
which has become one of the most crucial and most dynamic arenas of
self-fashioning—individuallyandcollectively,asthefollowingchapters
willshow.
Such an assertion is not colored by the prejudices of a disgruntled
outsider;eventhose"intheknow"repeatedlyreflectonthenecessityfor
more "upstream [read: earlier] public engagement" and more
"democratic dialogue" (van der Weele 123, 131) about the broader
social and cultural consequences. Similarly, Collins et al. in their
landmark article "A Vision for the Future of Genomic Research"
acknowledge the need for "'translational projects' that use these tools
[madeavailablebygeneticresearch]toexploreanddefinepublic-policy
optionsthatincorporatediversepointsofview"(843).
Fromthisperspective,genomics—notasscienctificprotocolbutasa
cultural model—is in important ways both new and also quite old. It is
"old"inthesensethatitoffersjustanothersemioticmodelofthesoma,
"new" because its unprecedented transformative abilities produce
radically different "patterns of moral emphasis" (van der Weele 188).
WhatevertheethicalandculturalimplicationstowhichIwillreturnina
momentmaybe,genomicshasundoubtedlybecomeanewlanguageand
a new vocabulary in which Americans (and others worldwide) express
their wishes for a future life and also the life of future persons. At the