This paper will divide this discussion in three broad sections — the first section will seek to weave together Hardt and Negri’s concept of Empire with Haraway’s apparatus of technoscience to discuss the operations of biopower in the production of differentiated and hybrid subjects and the potential for oppositional/revolutionary politics; the second section will consider the cyborg as a desiring-machine, and its coding as a collective object of feminist politics as opposed to a cybernetic mechanism which is embedded in the global network of capitalist technoscience; and the third section will evaluate the politics of becoming-cyborg in relation to Deleuze and Guattari’s prioritizing of the passage through becoming-woman for all molar entities, the first among becomings initiated by “women” themselves. (Author’s abstract)
Cyborgs in the Gym: Technopolitics of Female Muscles, by Krista Scott-Dixon.
My general argument in this paper is that, contrary to the popular view of it as merely a simpleminded pursuit for large, oddly shaped, animated pieces of meat, bodybuilding is a scientific and technological practice. The bodybuilder not only conceives of her body as a site to be disciplined through various chemical and mechanical technologies, but as a collection of discrete parts distinguished from the whole, which can be individually manipulated. Thus I suggest that the bodybuilder is a cyborg. In her article, “A Cyborg Manifesto”, Donna Haraway attempts to create what she calls “an ironic political myth” which combines postmodernism with socialist feminism. Central to her myth is the image of the cyborg, which is “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” The cyborg for Haraway is both a metaphor for the postmodernist and political play of identity and a lived reality of new technology. (Author’s introduction)
The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist and her Critic by Krista Scott, The Feminist eZine (1997).
A brief, interesting discussion of feminism and technoscience.
Cyborgs, Trickster, and Hermes: Donna Haraway’s Metatheory of Science and Religion by WilliamGrassie, Zygon June (1996).
“This article is a close reading of two essays by Donna Haraway on feminist philosophy, the biophysical sciences, and critical social theory. Haraway’s strong social constructionist approach to science is criticized by colleague Sandra Harding, resulting in an epistemological reconceptualization of objectivity by Haraway. Haraway’s notion of “Situated Knowledges” provides a workable episte mology for all social and biophysical sciences, while inviting the reintegration of religions as critical conversation partners in an emancipatory hermeneutics of nature, culture, and technology.” (Author’s abstract)
Dark Angel: Monstrous Science, by Adrian Gargett, in Disinformation.
A brief reading of the television show Dark Angel through the lens of Donna Haraway.
Decoding Perversity: Queering Cyberspace, by Jyanni Steffensen, Parallel 2 (1995).
This essay compares Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein figure along with various other images of the cyborg in Blade Runner and other popular cultural texts. It applies the work of cyberfeminists such as Haraway, Plant, VNS Matrix to issues of the gender, body, representation, and subjectivity.
The Desire to Be Wired, by Gareth Branwyn, Wired Magazine, Sept/Oct (1993).
Article about real life examples of cyborgs, “jacking in,” and “being wired,” and our cultural fascination with cyborgs. Cites Haraway and Stone.
Donna Haraway’s Dreams, by Nigel Thrift, in Theory, Culture and Society, 23 (2006).
A reflection on Haraway’s writing.
The Ethics and Politics of Cyborg Embodiment: Citizenship as a Hypervalue, by Charles Habels Gray.
Cyborgs, extended and augmented by prosthetics, can be described as hyper-bodies. As human-based cyborgs proliferate in type and quantity what does this mean for ethics and politics in 21st century cyborg societies? The ontological instability of cyborgs warrants the use of political technologies such as manifestos and written constitutions in order to ameliorate the potential of cyborgization to fatally undermine political self-determination and the very idea of citizenship. A discussion of cyborg manifestos is followed by a proposal by the author for a Cyborg Bill of Rights and a new mechanism for determining citizenship based on the Turing test. The article concludes with some comments on excessive bodies and citizenship as a hypervalue. (Author’s abstract)