InConclusive:HumanBiologyandtheWorkofCulturalCritique 437
deeply in U.S.-American culture, are neither culturally produced nor
constrained by its foundational assumptions or discursive archives.
Rather, they marka materialism of biological encountersin which the
body can be a disturbing, intrusive presence, inside the culture and also
insideculturalcritique.
Even as it has attempted to scan the broad canvas of human biology
and its cultural presence, the present volume has repeatedly, if not
exclusively dwelt on human life in its fragile, feeble, vulnerable
conditions. In doing so, it has not simply staked out a new and
potentially relevant field of critique, but done what cultural critique,
especially materialistic cultural critique, is all about. A long time ago,
way back in 1937, in exile in the U.S., the "founding father" of the
Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer, put it this way: "[T]he task of the
criticaltheoreticianistoreducethetensionbetweenhisowninsightand
oppressedhumanityinwhoseservicehethinks"(Horkheimer242).