This is a problem I am currently working on, and I'd like some feedback.
Can we necessarily take Haraway's cyborg literally--all of the time? I'm
beginning to read it more as an identity, the postmodern identity and the
metaphore (a word which Haraway herself employs to describe her cyborg).
I think it's time to rethink exactly what she means by cyborg. We're
talking about two different things, the literal cyborg and the cyborg
identity which is far-reaching and shifting, border-blurring..... Is
Elisabeth Vonarburg's Elisa, in The Silent City, a cyborg? The body as
machine blurrs the distinctions between the actual cyborg creation and the
cyborg identity. What do you think?
lorie
On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, Tanya Wood wrote:
> Interesting post, Melissa! I too am interested in cyborgs- presumnably you
> were looking at Donna Haraway's "Manifesto....."? She mentions a whole
> bunch of novels from Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal, to Varley's Triton,
> Demon, Wizard, Delany, Russ, Butler , McCaffrey's The Ship
> Who Sang, and others. Interestingly, in many of these books
> cyborgs per se are absent- or technology is treated ambivilently. In
> Russ's Female Man for example a woman in an induction helmet can perform
> the tasks of a thousand, but over in Manland men are
> transformed to women way that reifies male/female relations, and
> technology is devoted to war. So
> cyborgs cut both ways in Russ. In terms of Haraway's notion of the
> boundary between machine and human breaking down, Tanith Lee's The Silver
> Metal Lover is interesting as the machine *becomes* human. As Harraway
> might say "our machines are disturbingly lively while we are frightenly
> inert" (this may not be a totally accurate quote- the memory, alas,
> fades).
>
> I'm interested
> actually in the time frame of Harraway- when she first wrote her paper
> (around 1983 I think) technology must of seemed to offer a window of
> opportunity- now I suspect it has narrowed somewhat. With cyber-rapes
> and cyberstalkings, and cyborgs in the movies simply reinforcing "natural"
> (uh!) sexual differences (Robocop and the Terminator being examples of
> supposedly sexless machines being definitely "hard" and masculine), it
> may be that this window of opportunity- that the dissolving of boundaries
> between human/machine and hence other binaries like male/female- has
> closed.I know Harraway shouldn't be treated too literally, as she was
> engaged in an ironic project- a kind of myth making-but nonetheless
> developments in the technological world seem to me to be more dystopian
> than utopian. In that sense perhaps Harraway's project has failed.I'd
> appreciate any comments that may disabuse me of this sad conclusion!
>
> The only female cyborg in the movies I can think of is the borg Queen in
> Star Trek. It seemed to me, once again, to simply reinforce sexual
> boundaries and reflect male anxieties. The connection between sex and
> death for example, as the erotic "other" almost lures Data to a sexual
> doom! Then the borg queen as the phallic women, with the drill heading
> alarmingly towards Picard's impressive doomed forehead!Pentration!
> castration!The Horror, the horror! Then the stunning
> shot of Picard as a drone in a vast hive of all other captives- all
> servicing the Queen bee! Its all great fun, but
> not, alas, sexually revolutionary.Can anyone think of other female cyborgs
> in the movies?Do things pan out any better???
>
> Thanks for an interesting post Melissa!
>
> Tanya.
>
> PS the writer of The Terminal Experiment was Robert Sawyer- a Canadian- he
> spoke at a SF class I TA'ed at this year. An articulate man with an
> incredibly simple and clear prose style which is very good for
> storytelling, only I'm not so sure that the novel has alot of complexity.
> This is not precisely a criticism- there is alot to be said for
> storytelling.
>
Lorie Sauble-Otto
Dept. of French & Italian
Mod Lang 549
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:06 PDT