What Was Life? Answers from Three Limit Biologies Author(s): Stefan Helmreich Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Summer 2011), pp. 671-696 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/660987 . Accessed: 25/08/2011 13:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org What Was Life? Answers from Three Limit Biologies Stefan Helmreich “What was life? No one knew.” —THOMAS MANN, The Magic Mountain What is life? A gathering consensus in anthropology, science studies, and philosophy of biology suggests that the theoretical object of biology, “life,” is today in transformation, if not dissolution. Proliferating repro- ductive technologies, along with genomic reshufflings of biomatter in such practices as cloning, have unwound the facts of life.1 Biotechnology, bio- This paper grew from a presentation at “Vitalism Revisited: History, Philosophy, Biology,” at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Cultural Theory, Duke University, 22 Mar. 2008. I thank Barbara Herrnstein Smith for inviting me. The paper went through revision for “Extreme: Histories and Economies of Humanness Inside Outerspaces,” at the American Anthropological Association meeting, 2–6 Dec.