- Reading Cyborgs, Writing Feminism.
Anne Balsamo is considered a contemporary of Donna Haraway, and therefore her essay is of great value to me in determining how the ideas of cyborgs and embodiment have been interpreted and developed in more recent years. Balsamo examines cultural images of cyborgs in modern film and literature and argues that although they tend to reconstruct gender stereotypes, female-gendered cyborgs do more to challenge the opposition between human and body because of the greater perceived difference between femininity and technology. For Balsamo, the cyborg image has two fundamental uses for feminist scholarship: the deconstruction of subjectivity and the questioning of the naturalness of the body and its use as a marker of difference. Ultimately, Balsamo is using ideas in Haraway’s work in her attempt to reclaim the image of a cyborg as a tool for the possible reconstruction of a feminist identity which embraces difference rather than exploiting it. - Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body.
In his article Daniel Pimley links Haraway’s idea of deconstructing gender boundaries to Gibson’s Cyberpunk, which proposes the disintegration of internal and external boundaries through connecting to cyberspace. In cyberspace, the mind leaves the body and is able to open itself to an infinite network and flow of data thereby becoming a cyborg. Pimley makes many connections between Haraway’s ideas and that of the more recent Cyberpunk, which discovers freedom in abandoning the body. Both theories see biology and technology as forces unable to co-exist – for Cyberpunk, this means discarding the body in order to populate the increasingly technological world. Pimley also discusses some modern films and texts which see a future where biology and technology converge; however, he notes that the ungendered ideal posited by Haraway is hard or even impossible to reach, as although we may abandon bodies in the technological world, gender is fused to identity and is therefore more difficult to discard. Consequently Pimley warns of the dangers attached to further integration with technology while frustrations about our biology remain unresolved. In discussing these issues, Pimley’s article brings to light some notions that have arisen out of Haraway’s ideas. - Girls Need Modems!
This article is relevant to my topic in that it explores the ways in which gender and cyberspace connect and apply these to online magazines or ‘eZines.’ Scott argues that women who participate in or write for eZines are Haraway’s definition of cyborgs because of their interface with a computer. Of particular interest is section 2.07 entitled “Cyborgs in Cyberspace,” in which Scott explores Haraway’s cyborg as tool for playing with identity as well as a powerful concept for feminist action. Scott argues that Haraway’s cyborg is the most useful icon for exploring feminist eZines because eZines represent a network of feminists in cyberspace, who learn to use and control technology to achieve political ends. The cyborg is analogous to eZines in that they both allow for a convergence of conflicting ideas, theories, political strategies, and identities which free women from stereotypical categories of “Us” and “Them” and facilitate new kinds of political resistance. Therefore eZines act as a connecting point and network for women who otherwise would not have met, allowing space for contradiction and paradox that are important for actual political strategy and actions. - Imagined Bodies, Imagined Communities.
This second article by Krista Scott is an excellent resource for exploring some more recent ideas that have risen out of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto.” In “Imagined Bodies, Imagined Communities,” Scott critically engages with Haraway’s work as well as that of her contemporaries in a discussion involving issues of nationalism, identity and community. Specifically, she uses the metaphor of a cyborg as a new way of discussing and conceptualising national identities and political subjects, connecting the cyborg power of partial components and fragments coming together to the production of national identity through conflicting values, meanings, priorities, and histories. Furthermore, Scott explores the importance of the cyborg in contemporary theories dealing with postcolonial identities and the nation state, incorporating the arguments of Sandoval, Gabilondo, and Gray and Mentor and showing how they have taken up Haraway’s ideas and developed them. Scott argues that the cyborg as a theory and methodology opens the door to new ways of conceptualising and imagining bodies and communities, which in turn affects how they are experienced. - He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction.
In her article Barbara Summerhawk shows how the postmodern image of the cyborg is used in modern science fiction literature to question and even redefine our notions of masculinity and femininity. The author suggests that Haraway’s notion of the cyborg has created a culture with shifting and impermanent identities which opens the door to experiencing new ways of being. Similar to the works of Balsamo and Pimley, Summerhawk notes that in today’s cybernetic world the distinctions between human and machine, physical and non-physical are becoming blurred. Summerhawk argues that modern fiction uses this notion to deconstruct traditional notions of gender and intelligence. Furthermore Summerhawk notes that it is up to us to reshape our identities and take hold of the emergence of infinite possibilities to reconstruct our identities, realities and mythologies, as do the writers of postmodern science fiction. For Summerhawk, Haraway’s ideas have opened the door to sharing with artificial life new ways of experiencing being rather than submitting to the hegemonic, narrow, and traditional definitions of possibilities based on race, class, and gender.
References
Balsamo, Anne, “Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism,” in The Gendered Cyborg: a Reader, ed. Gill Kirkup, (London: Routeledge, 2000), pp.148-158, http://www.yorku.ca/jjenson/gradcourse/Balsamo_Reading.pdf (accessed 8 September 2010).
Pimley, Daniel, “Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body,” (2003) http://www.pimley.net/documents/cyborgfutures.pdf (accessed 8 September 2010).
Scott, Krista, “Girls Need Modems!” The Feminist eZine, (January 1998) http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/education/Girls-Need-Modems.html (accessed 8 September 2010).
Scott, Krista, “Imagined Bodies, Imagined Communities,” The Feminist eZine, (1999) http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/Imagined-Bodies-Imagined-Communities.html (accessed 8 September 2010).
Summerhawk, Barbara, “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction,” (July 1998) http://www.davidmswitzer.com/slonczewski/summerhawk.html (accessed 8 September 2010).
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