Miranda’s story: molecules, populations and the mortal organism

Abstract

[[ageingbiologydeathGilles DeleuzeMichel FoucaultMartin Heidegger]]Biomedicine is today transforming the human condition, but how such transformation is to be understood is a matter of debate. I seek to contribute to the debate by focusing on recent developments within a relatively novel subfield of gerontology which is engaged in the bio-molecular and bio-demographic characterization of the processes associated with the development of the organism from birth to death. I argue that these developments aid understanding of the conceptual difficulties confronting neo-Darwinian biological thought and poststructuralist social theory as one decentres the organism and the other the subject.

The Dispositif between Foucault and Agamben

“…19 This means that the death of any particular individual is insignificant, as life continues at the level of the population. 20 Indeed, Timothy Campbell has gone so far as to claim that much contemporary writing on biopolitics, including Agamben, Esposito and Peter Sloterdijk retain a preoccupation with how biopolitics regulates death, leading to biopolitics being reduced to a form of thanatopolitics. 21 The orthodox view is that biopower occupies a transitory moment in…”