InConclusive:HumanBiologyandtheWorkofCulturalCritique 431
thathumanbiologyshouldbeunderstoodasa(new)mastersignifier,for
examplealongthelineslaidoutbyDonaldM.Lowe:
[T]here still remains one referent apart from all the other destabilized
referents,whosepresencecannotbedenied,andthatisthebodyreferent,
ourveryownlivingbody.Thebodyreferentisinfactthereferentofall
referents, in the sense that ultimately all signified, values, or meanings
refertothedelineationandsatisfactionoftheneedsofthebody.(D.M.
Lowe14)The claims I have been making throughout this volume are both
more modest and more materialist: By branching out into a more
expansive understanding of biology as a cultural presence, my inquiry
has moved beyond the thematic and methodological confines of
American Studies and its cultural topographies and towards what might
be called a political economy reading. This means that the analytical
chapters above have not been centered on the usual suspects of
contemporarycritique,marginalizedidentities(eventhoughbiologycan
beanoccasionformarginalization,asthechaptersondisabilityandlate
life have shown). Instead, and on a more systematic level, they have
engagedbiologicalidiomsandissuesastheyaffect,possiblyrestrict,the
actual material well-being and the life chances of people, individually
and collectively. Not all of these restrictions can be healed by finding
new languages or new discursive formations for them. The real may
resist representation, but so does the body. The refractory, sometimes
brutal nature of human embodiments affects in material and ineluctable
wayshowpeoplecanlivetheirlivesandlivetogether.
For this reason, biological idioms and issues are always also
political. They cannot be sufficiently addressed if positioned inside
existing research protocols or the discursive practices of traditional
language- and literature-based criticism. The breakthroughs in genetics
and the biotechnical sector which are fundamentally changing our
understanding of human life, especially in areas such as reproduction,
illness,oldage,anddeath,areaddingnew urgenciesto culturalcritique
as the boundary between the biologically given and the
biotechnologically"made"isgettingprogressivelyblurred.
The empirical and conceptual contributions of this book, thus
defined, engage critical and much-needed revisions in the Humanities.