CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 351
same time, genomics also offers the means to realize these wishes.^44
Genomics is thus a technical tool which functions culturally as a
discourseofdesire.Thereisevenanamountoftechnologicalnarcissism
involved here. As Chris Shilling has noted, in the intense attention to
"the body as a project can be found [an] unprecedented amount of
attentiontothepersonalconstructionofpersonalbodies"(5).
Genes "as the primary actors determining the course of life" (Myers
235) operate in different spheres than, but not independently of, other
principal actors in the social manifold, such as the markets and the
military.Thepubliclifeofgenesthereforecannotbeseparatedfromthe
concerns and agendas dominating public life in general. This is the
moment then to note that the foundational analogies through which
genomics becomes public—gene = letter, body = text—fit in all too
smoothly like hand-in-glove with the prevalent cultural constructivist
doctrinewhichlikewiseassumesthateverythingistextuallyconstituted.
BiologicalFutures
Among the myriad fields of human experience and speculation,"the
future" has always been a favorite object of imaginative attention. The
advances in the biotech and biomedical sectors discussed give new,
biological substance to such future-directedness. Moreover, they
themselves have a marked futuristic index. The "Book of Life" as
writtenbygenomicsis—likeitsbiblicalavatar—aprophetictext,fullof
predictionsaboutthefutureoflife,individually andcollectively.Critics
might add here thatits finalchapter might also be another "Book of the
Apocalypse,"fullofdireprophesiesaboutcorporealcatastrophescaused
by"badgenes"andotherdefectsonthemolecularlevel.
One of the most unremittingly "bad genes" is the Huntington's
Disease, a genetic anomaly that progressively destroys the brain cells
and is inherited from a parent. It has become present in the culture
primarily because of its prominent victims, among them folk singer
Woody Guthrie. Beyond this circumscribed medical context, "bad
genes" have become a cultural cipher, to a large degree replacing the
(^44) In a more sweeping diagnosis, Paul Rabinow has argued that the "referent of
thelifesciences"haschanged("Afterword"189).