Question
Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.
Introduction
The websites in this webliography are searched by Yahoo Search (http://hk.search.yahoo.com/?fr=FP-tab-web-t-ac), Google Scholars (http://scholars.google.com) and some online libraries. When I first started to do this assignment, I use “cyberpunk” as my keyword to search and received more than 3 million results. So I narrowed down the searching criteria by searching keywords like “cyberpunk”, “technology” or “science fiction” together. After reading a few of them, I have chosen the following websites to analysis. I will first give a brief introduction to all of the websites, then criticize whether they are good or bad and whether I agree with these websites or not.
What is Cyberpunk?
I will start by explaining what cyberpunk is. According to Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com), I have got the following explanations. Cyberpunk is a term invented by a science fiction writer Bruce Bethke. It is a subgenre of science fiction which settings are always in a futuristic society with all illegal activities and people are dominated by computers. I traced the writer’s name and found in his personal website, Bruce Bethke has posted The Etymology of “Cyberpunk” (2000). He claimed that he has not invented the term cyberpunk. It was invented by writers like William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, etc. He also mentioned cyberpunks have achieved its goals because all the contemporary science fiction has to mention cyberpunk, the Internet or computer technologies brought forward by the above writers. Finally, he wrote that the reality of cyberpunk has not differed from the one he coined. He gave his own definition towards cyberpunk at the end of the essay: “a young, technologically facile, ethically vacuous, computer-adept vandal or criminal.”
After knowing what cyberpunk is, I begin to search for the writer who contributed much effort on cyberpunk and is always being quoted when talked about cyberpunk – William Gibson. I first come across an online essay, Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the ‘Multimedia Revolution, written by Nobuo Kamioka from Meiji University. She first pointing out that William Gibson published Neuromancer in 1984 had made the term cyberpunk popular. However, she later suggests that Neuromancer has its own weakness. She wrote that “the autor does not have enough insight into the physical and social context concerning the newest technologies and our bodies.” It is because in the later work of Gibson, personal computers and Internet had already been used by the majority. While Gibson had written something really exists in the reality. Furthermore, “cyberspace is much less often depicted sur-realistically in geometric design than it was in Neuromancer” in Gibson’s late novels. As a result, his later work, though easier to understand than Neuromancer, is not as readable as his first one. Towards the end of her essay, Nobuo Kamioka concluded that Gibson’s later novels clearly lacks of ideas against the virtual world, for “he cannot break out of the traditional structure of popular novels”.
William Gibson himself, on the other hand, has posted a piece of writing called My Obession. Gibson had gained famous by Neuromancer because he never laid his hands on computers or modern technologies, which enables him to write something innovative during the 1980s. However, his later novels do not make a hit. Gibson had noticed this as well. W hen he published a journal online for Wired, he started by “I thought I was immune to the Net. Then I got bitten by eBay”. (Jan, 1999) In the essay, Gibson confessed that he knows the reason why his writings, apart from Neuromacer, have failed to catch the attention of the audience. In the 1980s, Internet has became common for the masses and they can get access to Internet easily. At the beginning, Gibson did not like the idea who even did not want to have an email account. Later, his addiction to buying watches brings him to eBay. He has to get started with an email address. He started to become addicted and eventually the first thing he do every morning is checking his own account in eBay. This dependence on Internet or computer technologies has made him unable to remind his mind as pure as he was when he wrote Neuromancer. Like he stated at the end of this essay, “crazed environments of dead tech and poignant rubbish turn up in my fiction on a regular basis, where they are usually presented as being at once comforting, evocative, and somehow magical.”
After reading this article, I began to realize that technological innovation will led to the fall of cyberpunk. However, the technology nowadays is so advanced. Does it mean that cyberpunk no longer exist? In what form does it exits? Then I come across another article, Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science. Written by Mischa Peters, she said that “in cyberpunk we find heroes who want to enter the dispersing space of cyberspace, their minds merge with various spaces and technologies. Their bodies are ‘invaded by technology – by implants, by neuro-circuitry – electronic parts take over the role of organic parts. Technology seems to take over the role of biology.”
Bodies seem to be a very important issue in cyberpunk. With this issue in my head, I begin to search for another website. Technology as Extension of Human Functional Architecture is what I came across next. What makes me interested in is at the end of this essay, there is a section predicting the distant future of technology and human. The writer predicted that, “intelligent entities will be extremely fluid and highly independent from the physical substrate of the world.” He further predicted that the world in the future will become “a mix of superliquid economy, cyberspace anarchy and distributed Artificial Intelligence.”
The prediction of future seems horrible. However, as Joachim Schummer suggested in his essay, instead of conveying a simple moral message, it is rather up to readers to make their own positive or negative judgment on the fiction technology’s impacts on society. While many readers might feel uncomfortable with such visions, Cyberpunk has… inspired many, if not all, visions of transhumanist utopia..”
To sum up, like what Alexander Chislenko had mentioned at the end of his essay, “To current humans, it may look like crazy functional soup.” Yet, we should have our own vision towards the future.
Bethke, Bruce. (2000). The Etymology of “Cyberpunk. Bruce Bethke: Freelance Writer. Retrieved March 23, 2007, from http://www.brucebethke.com/nf_cp.html
Kamioka, Nobuo. (1998) Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the ‘Multimedia Revolution. Meiji University. Retrieved March 21, 2007, from http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jaas/periodicals/JJAS/PDF/1998/No.09-053.pdf
Gibson, William. (Jan 1999) My Obession. Wired. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html
Peters, Mischa. (September 29, 2000). Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science. Universiterit Utrecht, Retrieved March 21, 2007, from http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html
Chislenko, Alexander. (December 11, 2003). Technology as Extension of Human Functional Architecture. Extropy Online. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/technology_as_extension.html
Schummer, Joachim. (2004). Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: Meanings, Interest Groups, and Social Dynamics. University of Darmstadt. Retrieve March 26, 2007, from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v8n2/pdf/schummer.pdf
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
BEAR's
[cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination]---BY BEAR, Kwong Hoi Leung
In this essay, I have used google.com and the yahoo.com to search the relate document. In the search process, the most difficult is hard to discover the well-known author's article. But in the result of searching, it has many website which is about the cyberpunk, but related topic paper are less, and some foreign author's paper must pay money only then may watch.
This essay topic is: [cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.]. I have looked for six websites articles, the most early article which published on 1948, it took the comparison until the recent years paper.
In the website [Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science][2] which written by Mischa Peters, it defined what is cyberpunk. [...Cyberpunk, for those who do not know the genre, is a sub-genre of science fiction. It is used to describe writers like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear (among others). It often sketches a dark vision of the future: in this future information technology has penetrated every aspect of a society where corporate, multinational companies and the 'mafia' seem to be ruling, and which is populated by a range of (post-)human forms].
In recently years, story or movie which relate to cyberpunk style which always appears that [sketches a dark vision of the future], such as Matrix,Robot Cop or other.
In Matrix, the computers control the world, and a part of human try to fight back. In Matrix, most of the human are roiling as the battery to provide power for computer. This paper is suggested that the human is complex in cyberpunk fiction is very common. In this paper, it had talk about the charter in the cyberpunk movie how they mapping the bodies with technological. The re-make human is simple, or the human without re-make operation can not be alive in cyberpunk fiction. But, there is less a statement to talk about the humanist. The old form of humanist is seeking for the nature body, the cyberpunk fiction is opposite to the moral.
In another website [Cyberpunk in the Nineties][3] is written by Bruce Sterling support this point. Bruce think that the group of Cheap Truth blind to follow to write the cyberpunk fiction, and the cyberpunk story a dark vision, the human in the fiction is re-build ed, it is the crash of the moral. But, the re-build of human body is not create in the cyberpunk fiction, but the cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction, it seems to prove the tech. is not humanity.
[This "anti-humanist" conviction in cyberpunk is not simply some literary stunt to outrage the bourgeoisie; this is an objective fact about culture in the late twentieth century. Cyberpunk didn't invent this situation; it just reflects it .][3].
Also, Bruce think that the cyberpunk fiction is outdated. It is because in 50's, the technological is not well at that time, people had great expectation for it. It was a fresh category of fiction, it made crash in it. But in the late 80's, the technological developed and the people started to think the technological crash the moral and would be calamity.
[SF's struggle for quality was indeed old news, except to Cheap Truth, whose writers were simply too young and parochial to have caught on. But the cultural terrain had changed, and that made a lot of difference. Honest "technological literacy" in the 50's was exhilarating but disquieting - but in the high-tech 80's, "technological literacy" meant outright ecstasy and dread. Cyberpunk was weird, which obscured the basic simplicity of its theory- and- practice. ][3]
Another definition of cyberpunk which write by Illusivemind ,[Cyberpunk is about expressing (often dark) ideas about human nature, technology and their respective combination in the near future.], the negative image of the cyberpunk is permeated in the people mind, such as the feeling of cyberpunk is cool, the corruption, the dirty city, and the machine and human integrate, those are opposite to the moral in now-days. It makes the human to wake and introspection.[ In a cyberpunks near-future, technology runs rampant, and usually manipulates most societal interactions. Dystopian near futures are very common, but so are futures where the impacts of specific technologies are played out in a world only slightly different from the present. Sacred societal boundaries are often crossed with regularity. Often the earth is severely damaged. Crime and drug use are often key supporting themes .][4]
Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrow's book[Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment][1] quoted Norbert Wiene idea. The cybernetics was conceived as a communications network function, in 40's, it is a new study topic of the automata, whatever it is metal or in the flesh. The automata is impressions, the people was imaginably that the automata's the incoming message and the action if the outgoing message process. The people in 40's was joy to see the technological in the cyberspace, but there was no cyberpunk fiction in that time.
For my views, the cyberpunk fiction is a fibbing story which create by a writer. The story forces on the technology and the future. As Bruce ideas, the Cyberpunk story is against to the moral, such as the re-building body. And the Cyberpunks world is negative, it let the reader in bad impression. But in fact, the technology always against to the moral, and the world is towards to the "cyberpunk" world! For example, the power shortage is the fact and problem, and the pollution problem affect to our earth. If there is no another resource to replace and solve the pollution, there will be a reality "cyberpunk" world in future. The writer is foresee the problem in now-days world. Also, the new technology always against to the moral, for example the "human cloning", it is also against to the bible and the moral.
In 40's, the people were happy to see the technology improvement, beside the technology was outdated at that time, the topic of the story is fresh! Now-days the cyberpunk story is too many! It is not attractive anymore.
In the Michael Heim views, there is no reality in the cyberspace. The people living in the fake world- Internet. The cyberspace is imagination and create by people that has no wall to block each country and community. The Internet is a communication tools. [ If the people who make simulations inevitably incorporate their own perceptions and beliefs, loading cyberspace with their prejudices as well as their insights, who should build the cyberworld? Should multiple users at any point be free to shape the qualities and dimensions of cyber entities? Should artistic users roam freely, programming and directing their own unique cyber cinemas that provide escape from the mundane world? Or does fantasy cease where the economics of the virtual workplace begins? But why be satisfied with a single virtual world? Why not several? Must we pledge allegiance to a single reality? Perhaps worlds should be layered like onion skins, realities within realities, or be loosely linked like neighborhoods, permitting free aesthetic pleasure to coexist with the task-oriented business world. Does the meaning of "reality"--and the keen existential edge of experience--weaken as it stretches over many virtual worlds?][5]
The cyberpunk fiction is genre of the science fiction, and those of the technology is not reality. But now-days, the Internet create a cyberspace, it build a fibbing space for the user to make their own community. They can earn the money or buy the stuff on it. For my own view, the trade on the Internet is not real, and the world of the cyberspace is not reality. The Internet is a tools to let the people communication between different community, but the community is not really exist. The really exist is the server only. And those of the web or cyberspace are the program or symbol in a computer, we can't call the symbol to be reality.
William Gibson, on his writing say that it is because he know how to use the Internet, it affect the sales of his book. It is because the first book is create by himself. The reader think it is fresh. But the second, it is because he know how to use the Internet, he started to read other author's story. It make him into the "Cheap Truth".
[I thought I was immune to the Net. Then I got bitten by eBay.][5].
References
[1]
Mike Featherstone, Roger Burrows."Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment".1996. Retrieved 19, March 2007,
http://books.google.com/books?id=wjtm5I1XUd8C&dq=Cyberpunk&hl=zh-TW
[2]Mischa Peters . " Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science".September 29 2000. Retrieved 21,March 2007,http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html
[3]Sterling, Bruce. " Cyberpunk in the Nineties". Retrieved 23,March 2007,http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Manifestos/CPInThe90s.html
[4] Illusivemind. "What is Cyberpunk?". Retrieved 17, March, 2007
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/
[5]Michael Heim."The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace". Retrieved 17, March, 2007
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/erotic_ontology_of_cyberspace.html
[6]
William Gibson. "My Obsession". Retrieved 21, March, 2007
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
In this essay, I have used google.com and the yahoo.com to search the relate document. In the search process, the most difficult is hard to discover the well-known author's article. But in the result of searching, it has many website which is about the cyberpunk, but related topic paper are less, and some foreign author's paper must pay money only then may watch.
This essay topic is: [cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.]. I have looked for six websites articles, the most early article which published on 1948, it took the comparison until the recent years paper.
In the website [Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science][2] which written by Mischa Peters, it defined what is cyberpunk. [...Cyberpunk, for those who do not know the genre, is a sub-genre of science fiction. It is used to describe writers like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear (among others). It often sketches a dark vision of the future: in this future information technology has penetrated every aspect of a society where corporate, multinational companies and the 'mafia' seem to be ruling, and which is populated by a range of (post-)human forms].
In recently years, story or movie which relate to cyberpunk style which always appears that [sketches a dark vision of the future], such as Matrix,Robot Cop or other.
In Matrix, the computers control the world, and a part of human try to fight back. In Matrix, most of the human are roiling as the battery to provide power for computer. This paper is suggested that the human is complex in cyberpunk fiction is very common. In this paper, it had talk about the charter in the cyberpunk movie how they mapping the bodies with technological. The re-make human is simple, or the human without re-make operation can not be alive in cyberpunk fiction. But, there is less a statement to talk about the humanist. The old form of humanist is seeking for the nature body, the cyberpunk fiction is opposite to the moral.
In another website [Cyberpunk in the Nineties][3] is written by Bruce Sterling support this point. Bruce think that the group of Cheap Truth blind to follow to write the cyberpunk fiction, and the cyberpunk story a dark vision, the human in the fiction is re-build ed, it is the crash of the moral. But, the re-build of human body is not create in the cyberpunk fiction, but the cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction, it seems to prove the tech. is not humanity.
[This "anti-humanist" conviction in cyberpunk is not simply some literary stunt to outrage the bourgeoisie; this is an objective fact about culture in the late twentieth century. Cyberpunk didn't invent this situation; it just reflects it .][3].
Also, Bruce think that the cyberpunk fiction is outdated. It is because in 50's, the technological is not well at that time, people had great expectation for it. It was a fresh category of fiction, it made crash in it. But in the late 80's, the technological developed and the people started to think the technological crash the moral and would be calamity.
[SF's struggle for quality was indeed old news, except to Cheap Truth, whose writers were simply too young and parochial to have caught on. But the cultural terrain had changed, and that made a lot of difference. Honest "technological literacy" in the 50's was exhilarating but disquieting - but in the high-tech 80's, "technological literacy" meant outright ecstasy and dread. Cyberpunk was weird, which obscured the basic simplicity of its theory- and- practice. ][3]
Another definition of cyberpunk which write by Illusivemind ,[Cyberpunk is about expressing (often dark) ideas about human nature, technology and their respective combination in the near future.], the negative image of the cyberpunk is permeated in the people mind, such as the feeling of cyberpunk is cool, the corruption, the dirty city, and the machine and human integrate, those are opposite to the moral in now-days. It makes the human to wake and introspection.[ In a cyberpunks near-future, technology runs rampant, and usually manipulates most societal interactions. Dystopian near futures are very common, but so are futures where the impacts of specific technologies are played out in a world only slightly different from the present. Sacred societal boundaries are often crossed with regularity. Often the earth is severely damaged. Crime and drug use are often key supporting themes .][4]
Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrow's book[Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment][1] quoted Norbert Wiene idea. The cybernetics was conceived as a communications network function, in 40's, it is a new study topic of the automata, whatever it is metal or in the flesh. The automata is impressions, the people was imaginably that the automata's the incoming message and the action if the outgoing message process. The people in 40's was joy to see the technological in the cyberspace, but there was no cyberpunk fiction in that time.
For my views, the cyberpunk fiction is a fibbing story which create by a writer. The story forces on the technology and the future. As Bruce ideas, the Cyberpunk story is against to the moral, such as the re-building body. And the Cyberpunks world is negative, it let the reader in bad impression. But in fact, the technology always against to the moral, and the world is towards to the "cyberpunk" world! For example, the power shortage is the fact and problem, and the pollution problem affect to our earth. If there is no another resource to replace and solve the pollution, there will be a reality "cyberpunk" world in future. The writer is foresee the problem in now-days world. Also, the new technology always against to the moral, for example the "human cloning", it is also against to the bible and the moral.
In 40's, the people were happy to see the technology improvement, beside the technology was outdated at that time, the topic of the story is fresh! Now-days the cyberpunk story is too many! It is not attractive anymore.
In the Michael Heim views, there is no reality in the cyberspace. The people living in the fake world- Internet. The cyberspace is imagination and create by people that has no wall to block each country and community. The Internet is a communication tools. [ If the people who make simulations inevitably incorporate their own perceptions and beliefs, loading cyberspace with their prejudices as well as their insights, who should build the cyberworld? Should multiple users at any point be free to shape the qualities and dimensions of cyber entities? Should artistic users roam freely, programming and directing their own unique cyber cinemas that provide escape from the mundane world? Or does fantasy cease where the economics of the virtual workplace begins? But why be satisfied with a single virtual world? Why not several? Must we pledge allegiance to a single reality? Perhaps worlds should be layered like onion skins, realities within realities, or be loosely linked like neighborhoods, permitting free aesthetic pleasure to coexist with the task-oriented business world. Does the meaning of "reality"--and the keen existential edge of experience--weaken as it stretches over many virtual worlds?][5]
The cyberpunk fiction is genre of the science fiction, and those of the technology is not reality. But now-days, the Internet create a cyberspace, it build a fibbing space for the user to make their own community. They can earn the money or buy the stuff on it. For my own view, the trade on the Internet is not real, and the world of the cyberspace is not reality. The Internet is a tools to let the people communication between different community, but the community is not really exist. The really exist is the server only. And those of the web or cyberspace are the program or symbol in a computer, we can't call the symbol to be reality.
William Gibson, on his writing say that it is because he know how to use the Internet, it affect the sales of his book. It is because the first book is create by himself. The reader think it is fresh. But the second, it is because he know how to use the Internet, he started to read other author's story. It make him into the "Cheap Truth".
[I thought I was immune to the Net. Then I got bitten by eBay.][5].
References
[1]
Mike Featherstone, Roger Burrows."Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment".1996. Retrieved 19, March 2007,
http://books.google.com/books?id=wjtm5I1XUd8C&dq=Cyberpunk&hl=zh-TW
[2]Mischa Peters . " Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science".September 29 2000. Retrieved 21,March 2007,http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html
[3]Sterling, Bruce. " Cyberpunk in the Nineties". Retrieved 23,March 2007,http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Manifestos/CPInThe90s.html
[4] Illusivemind. "What is Cyberpunk?". Retrieved 17, March, 2007
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/
[5]Michael Heim."The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace". Retrieved 17, March, 2007
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/erotic_ontology_of_cyberspace.html
[6]
William Gibson. "My Obsession". Retrieved 21, March, 2007
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/ebay.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
Sing's Webliography
Q1. In Haraway's“Cyborg Manifesto”, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what way is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?
Cyborg, the full name is Cybernetic organism which is a hybrid of machine and organism and a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. In this webliography, I have chosen 6 online resources to elaborate the gender significant in the representation of cyborgs, created by Donna Haraway. Firstly, I use “Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto” these key words to browse in the Google search engine. I want to find some of the related articles in order to know more about the aspect of cyborg in the gender way.
Let's start with my first source, “The Female Cyborg”, Luciano Duran has written some explanation of “Cyborg Manifesto” in the first paragraph. The author tries to use a feminist angle to explore many ideas of cyborg. Also, this article is mainly talking about the Feminism cyborg as we can see in the “Feminist cyborgs are the agents of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of ‘patriarchal capitalism.’” This feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological embodiment challenges the patriarchy society and values.
Why did Haraway create this cybernetic organism? The answer we can be found in the second source, “Power and Invisibility” by Andrew Arsham. Create or being a cyborg becomes a new way to survive in this post-modern society. (The word has come to mean a combination of man and machine) Also, it contains another definition of cyborg we have never seen in the other article.
I have chosen Theresa M. Senft's articles for my third source. Unlike other articles, it has a simple introduction and conclusion. The author has using many short sentences instead of some complicated long sentences. It’s a very useful tool in order to let the readers know more clear about what the definition of cyborg is and understand the background information of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. In the articles, the author is using a metaphor to introduce cyborg as a monster and discussing three current “border crossings”. On the other hand, there are some headlines which related to the gender thinking. Like Haraway argued that the feminists have deployed some ideas of women experiences and the cyborg will "change what counts as experience" for women in the late twentieth century. Also, Haraway deals specifically with the issue of feminist political organizing in light of cyborg politics. Indeed, she suggests that feminist might be better served, Haraway notes, by considering “woman” to be a socially constructed category, deployed in a communications network, along the lines of “homosexual” and “youth”.
The cyborg always comes across in the aspects of popular culture such as science- fiction films. In the third source, “The Cyborg Self”, the author tries to use a type of cyberpunk films, Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell to mention about the sexuality features of cyborg. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film which is usually set in near future and focuses on the technology, computer and dystopian world. Some of the characters are treated as the sexual objects in the films. In the first paragraph, the author suggests that female cyborg is “the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology with the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg's transgression of the human/machine distinction.” As a paternalistic authority or father-like leadership style, women or femininity is associated with passive, dependent or weakness. Women were often treated as a second class people and women had to follow “the rule of man” in the society. “Female cyborgs are endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits”. For example in Blade Runner, Major Kusanagi and the Knight Sabers have large, feminine breasts that are often the focus of the camera's gaze that means to fulfill the male gaze by the focus of the camera.
Let's talk more about Blade Runner from, “Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner”. In this article, Andrew Ross introduces the idea of Haraway’s manifesto being “a kind of ‘bad girl’ manifestoes because the film is talking about the female characters “pleasure and danger”. He refers to the dangers of burgeoning technology of women leaving their historically assigned realm of nature and engaging in a risky embrace of science, the mechanical, everything supposedly foreign to them. Destroying this old boundary is the task of a bad girl, “oppositional.” This move towards cyborgicity must begin with the feminine if it comes cross a gender line and become postgender. For a boy to embrace technology is nothing transgressive or new, it does nothing to help him transcend gender. So it is the female replicants that will occupy the center of this discussion, not Roy, Leon or Deckard, in his ambiguous humanity. Obviously, Pris, Zhora and Rachael live on a more distant fringe and contain the greatest transgressive potential. The film’s treatment of them provides the most meaningful insights into gender cyborgicity.
At the beginning of my last sources, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology”, the author asks a question instantly. “What’s the difference between man and woman, in a world where technoscience is rewriting biology?” Some of the points in this article are very closely with Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” which emphasis the oppression against binary opposition of gender. To answer the question, the article mentions that cyborg is woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal. These stereotype characteristics just like the traditional women traits and it also mentions that women need to use our own powers from whatever sources we can gather them to create new meanings and better worlds in the post-modern period.
In conclusion, I think cyborg is always created as female gender no matter in the popular culture such as the science fiction films like Blade Runner. Female characters in the films being an ideal female figure, project towards the men character or audience. It is the same as the characteristic of traditional women. Most of the authors suggest that women need to use their own powers to create a better world in this post modern society. It's also the worthiness of the shown of cyborg.
Reference:
[1] Duran, L, ‘Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[2] Andrew, A, ‘Power and Invisibility’
http://www.knoi.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[3]Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” (21 October 2001)
http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe./writing/manifesto.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[4] Nagle, P. ‘The Cyborg Self’
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[5] Hannah, K, ‘Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner’
http://girl_type.tripod.com/papers/bladerunner.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[6] Radin, P, ‘When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.’ (June 1997)
http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin (accessed on 23 March 2007)
Cyborg, the full name is Cybernetic organism which is a hybrid of machine and organism and a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. In this webliography, I have chosen 6 online resources to elaborate the gender significant in the representation of cyborgs, created by Donna Haraway. Firstly, I use “Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto” these key words to browse in the Google search engine. I want to find some of the related articles in order to know more about the aspect of cyborg in the gender way.
Let's start with my first source, “The Female Cyborg”, Luciano Duran has written some explanation of “Cyborg Manifesto” in the first paragraph. The author tries to use a feminist angle to explore many ideas of cyborg. Also, this article is mainly talking about the Feminism cyborg as we can see in the “Feminist cyborgs are the agents of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of ‘patriarchal capitalism.’” This feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological embodiment challenges the patriarchy society and values.
Why did Haraway create this cybernetic organism? The answer we can be found in the second source, “Power and Invisibility” by Andrew Arsham. Create or being a cyborg becomes a new way to survive in this post-modern society. (The word has come to mean a combination of man and machine) Also, it contains another definition of cyborg we have never seen in the other article.
I have chosen Theresa M. Senft's articles for my third source. Unlike other articles, it has a simple introduction and conclusion. The author has using many short sentences instead of some complicated long sentences. It’s a very useful tool in order to let the readers know more clear about what the definition of cyborg is and understand the background information of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. In the articles, the author is using a metaphor to introduce cyborg as a monster and discussing three current “border crossings”. On the other hand, there are some headlines which related to the gender thinking. Like Haraway argued that the feminists have deployed some ideas of women experiences and the cyborg will "change what counts as experience" for women in the late twentieth century. Also, Haraway deals specifically with the issue of feminist political organizing in light of cyborg politics. Indeed, she suggests that feminist might be better served, Haraway notes, by considering “woman” to be a socially constructed category, deployed in a communications network, along the lines of “homosexual” and “youth”.
The cyborg always comes across in the aspects of popular culture such as science- fiction films. In the third source, “The Cyborg Self”, the author tries to use a type of cyberpunk films, Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell to mention about the sexuality features of cyborg. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film which is usually set in near future and focuses on the technology, computer and dystopian world. Some of the characters are treated as the sexual objects in the films. In the first paragraph, the author suggests that female cyborg is “the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology with the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg's transgression of the human/machine distinction.” As a paternalistic authority or father-like leadership style, women or femininity is associated with passive, dependent or weakness. Women were often treated as a second class people and women had to follow “the rule of man” in the society. “Female cyborgs are endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits”. For example in Blade Runner, Major Kusanagi and the Knight Sabers have large, feminine breasts that are often the focus of the camera's gaze that means to fulfill the male gaze by the focus of the camera.
Let's talk more about Blade Runner from, “Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner”. In this article, Andrew Ross introduces the idea of Haraway’s manifesto being “a kind of ‘bad girl’ manifestoes because the film is talking about the female characters “pleasure and danger”. He refers to the dangers of burgeoning technology of women leaving their historically assigned realm of nature and engaging in a risky embrace of science, the mechanical, everything supposedly foreign to them. Destroying this old boundary is the task of a bad girl, “oppositional.” This move towards cyborgicity must begin with the feminine if it comes cross a gender line and become postgender. For a boy to embrace technology is nothing transgressive or new, it does nothing to help him transcend gender. So it is the female replicants that will occupy the center of this discussion, not Roy, Leon or Deckard, in his ambiguous humanity. Obviously, Pris, Zhora and Rachael live on a more distant fringe and contain the greatest transgressive potential. The film’s treatment of them provides the most meaningful insights into gender cyborgicity.
At the beginning of my last sources, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology”, the author asks a question instantly. “What’s the difference between man and woman, in a world where technoscience is rewriting biology?” Some of the points in this article are very closely with Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” which emphasis the oppression against binary opposition of gender. To answer the question, the article mentions that cyborg is woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal. These stereotype characteristics just like the traditional women traits and it also mentions that women need to use our own powers from whatever sources we can gather them to create new meanings and better worlds in the post-modern period.
In conclusion, I think cyborg is always created as female gender no matter in the popular culture such as the science fiction films like Blade Runner. Female characters in the films being an ideal female figure, project towards the men character or audience. It is the same as the characteristic of traditional women. Most of the authors suggest that women need to use their own powers to create a better world in this post modern society. It's also the worthiness of the shown of cyborg.
Reference:
[1] Duran, L, ‘Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[2] Andrew, A, ‘Power and Invisibility’
http://www.knoi.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[3]Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” (21 October 2001)
http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe./writing/manifesto.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[4] Nagle, P. ‘The Cyborg Self’
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[5] Hannah, K, ‘Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner’
http://girl_type.tripod.com/papers/bladerunner.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[6] Radin, P, ‘When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.’ (June 1997)
http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin (accessed on 23 March 2007)
Monday, 26 March 2007
Critical Annotated Webliography on Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto'
Guiding Question:
In Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what ways is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?
Introduction
In researching on the guiding question one, at the beginning, I used the Google Scholar search engines searching for “Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture”. This search produced hundred of results, but many of them are books or some resources that I cannot directly link them. Thus, there are not useful for my webliography. Therefore, I switch to used Google search engine. After perusing the first ten pages of the results, I was able to locate seven articles that I believed would be closely related and useful to answering the guiding question. These articles are as follow:
Donna Haraway first published the essay “A Cyborg Manifesto”[1] in 1985. At that time, the manifesto was promptly causing controversy. The manifesto is characterized by Haraway as the femaleness of the cyborg. The cyborg in Haraway’s manifesto has always been discussed in the context of techo-science and popular culture. I will first examine a variety of interpretations on Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. And I will then examine the way in which gender is significant in the representaion of cyborgs in media text.
Theresa M. Senft’s article[2] offers a useful introduction to Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. She demonstrates her interpretations of Haraway’s text. The article was well organized and comprehensive. It is a helpful starting point to understand the manifesto. Susanna Paasonen’s article[3], on the hand, explores how the manifesto has been read and defined by other scholars. She point out that the cyborg in Haraway’s manifesto was a theoretical figure, a rhetorical strategy and a political method for reconsidering hierarchical binary thinking and binary divisions, i.e. the boundaries between male and female, organic and inorganic, natural and artificial. She continues, the cyborg is breaking boundaries of gender, race or sexuality. In this sense, it becomes an alternative figuration for us to think and speak about the relationship between women and technology, and the possibilities for change and multiplicity. Susanna explains that the manifesto call for women’s active participation in techno-scientific research, feminist appropriation and incorporation of the technology. In short, it strategically functions in rethinking feminist agency.
Hari Kunzru’s article[4] on Donnaway’s ideas proved to be a very useful. Kunzru further explain Susanna’s interpretation that the purpose of the manifesto is to encourage us to rethink about what is natural today and possibility to change. Kunzru illustrated his point with example. Women were told that they were “naturally” weak, emotional, dependent, submissive, and so on, whereas male is strong, aggressive, independent, and so on. Thus they should stay at home and take care of children. If they think that these things are natural and it is what they should do. Their situation will never change. But, if these things are not natural but constructed, like they cyborg, both men and female can be reconstructed with the right tools. In addition, he suggests that modems are the center of cyborg politics. It is because cyborg not just about the freedom construction of yourself, it is about the network too. Meanwhile, Kunzru argued that we are all cyborg. He details the evolution of cyborg to clarify his thesis. In the initial stage, cyborg can be transcending human’s bodily limitations. The typical example of cyborg is Superman. Then we have robots, automata and artificial people from the western culture. Kunzru points out the difference between automata and today’s cyborg is “information”. In 90s, cyborg is accomplished creature and more domestic than 50’s ancestor. Retinal implants, cochlear implants, cosmetic surgery, and so forth. All of them are technology or machine work on our body. Make it simple, people who wear glasses can be considered is a cyborg, because people make use of glasses to help them seeing. Thus, I highly agree with Kunzru that we are cyborg.
Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu[5], on the one hand, argued that Frankenstein’s Monster initially is a cyborg, and, consequently, Donna Haraway’s cyborg is the modern version of Frankenstein’s monster. According to Haraway, the cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it is neither female, nor male, or both. Frankenstein’s monster is obviously a man. Can we consider it is a woman? It is transgressed of gender boundary. Vacarescu claim that gender uncertainty of the monster makes him a monster. In this sense, Vacarescu use Frankenstein as a metaphor to challenge Haraway’s ideas that the cyborg was crossing the boundary between male and female. She argues Haraway’s idea confused the gender boundaries and definitions.
In Rochelle Rodrigo’s article[6], she mentions that Haraway, on the other hand, emphasizes that the cyborg difference from Frankenstein’s monster. Rodrigo indicated that The Terminator (1984) was released when Haraway just published the “Cyborg Manifesto”. Some of the most notable bad images of cyborgs also include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Star Wars (1976), Blade Runner (1982) and Videodrome (1982). Haraway's choose to use some texts, such as Blade Runner, Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang (1969), Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975) and Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal (1983) which have a good image to demonstrate her ideas on the manifesto. Haraway’s good cyborg image is an amusing contrast to bad cyborg image.
In popular culture and many science fiction films, female cyborgs are always depticted as objects of pornography, iron maiden, innocence and being control, on the contrary, male cyborg is smart, intelligent and rebel. Ulrich Scheck’s article[7] examines gender relations in science fiction film and television from 1980 to present in popular culture in general. Scheck notes that female characters took the peripheral and unimportant roles in the science fiction universe in 60’s to early 70’s. However, representation of women has change start from the first movie of the Alien (1979) to the Star Trek Enterprise series (2001). Women, in this decade, have been depicted as scientists, explorers, mission leaders, and starship captains. Representations of women become more equal even surpassing men in traditional male-dominated roles. Scheck claim that gender roles become more fluid and less restrict to the binary concepts, like what Haraway has suggested. Moreover, the relationship between male and female should take some turns. Indeed, the representation of women has seemingly changed. However, I doubt that women can be surpassing men-dominated roles in science fiction universe. Moreover, the portrayal of cyborg characters reinforces gender binary. For instance, the Borg Queen in the Star Trek seems strong and powerful, but eventually, she loses to Data and the caption.
Conclusion
Donna Haraway's boardly referenced and dicussed "Cyborg Manifesto" has inspired researchers to rethink the hierarchical binary thinking and binary divisions, the boundaries between organic and inorganic, natural and artificial, and in particular, male and female. In addition, it encourage us to rethink the relationship between women and technologies. The ways in which how women are represent in film and popular culture, are seemingly change. I argue that the portrayal of cyborg characters in popular culture, to certain extent, still reinforces gender binary. Female characters still took the peripheral and unimportant roles in the science fiction universe. For instance, the female characters depicted in Matrix.
References:
[1] Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007.
[2] Senft, Theresa M. "Reading Notes on Donna Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto.'", 21 Oct 2001, http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe/writing/manifesto.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[3] Susanna, Paasonen. “Cyborg & Cyclops: the vision of a man-machine” http://www.translocal.net/susanna/cyborg_cyclops.pdf accessed 20 Mar 2007
[4] Hari Kunzru. ‘You are cyborg’, Wired Magazine, 5.02, (February 1997) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[5] Theodora-Eliza, Vacarescu. “From Frankenstein’s Monster to Haraway’s Cyborg” http://www.feminism.ro/book_gender_post/part4/Theo_Vacarescu.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[6] Rochelle Rodrigo. “Rochelle Rodrigo’s “Cyborging: Rhetoric Beyond
Donna Haraway and the Cyborg Manifesto”, The Journal of Advancing Technology, Volume 2 (Spring 2005) http://www.information-technology-college.com/subPages/insideTheTechnology/subpages/inthefield/subpages/journal/content/spring_2005/UAT_Journal_spring2005.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[7] Ulrich Scheck. “Where No Woman Has Gone Before: Humour and Gender Crossing in Star Trek’s Voyager and Enterpris” http://www.german.ubc.ca/GLM/bronnbach/WS1_Scheck_Web.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007
In Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what ways is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?
Introduction
In researching on the guiding question one, at the beginning, I used the Google Scholar search engines searching for “Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture”. This search produced hundred of results, but many of them are books or some resources that I cannot directly link them. Thus, there are not useful for my webliography. Therefore, I switch to used Google search engine. After perusing the first ten pages of the results, I was able to locate seven articles that I believed would be closely related and useful to answering the guiding question. These articles are as follow:
Donna Haraway first published the essay “A Cyborg Manifesto”[1] in 1985. At that time, the manifesto was promptly causing controversy. The manifesto is characterized by Haraway as the femaleness of the cyborg. The cyborg in Haraway’s manifesto has always been discussed in the context of techo-science and popular culture. I will first examine a variety of interpretations on Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. And I will then examine the way in which gender is significant in the representaion of cyborgs in media text.
Theresa M. Senft’s article[2] offers a useful introduction to Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. She demonstrates her interpretations of Haraway’s text. The article was well organized and comprehensive. It is a helpful starting point to understand the manifesto. Susanna Paasonen’s article[3], on the hand, explores how the manifesto has been read and defined by other scholars. She point out that the cyborg in Haraway’s manifesto was a theoretical figure, a rhetorical strategy and a political method for reconsidering hierarchical binary thinking and binary divisions, i.e. the boundaries between male and female, organic and inorganic, natural and artificial. She continues, the cyborg is breaking boundaries of gender, race or sexuality. In this sense, it becomes an alternative figuration for us to think and speak about the relationship between women and technology, and the possibilities for change and multiplicity. Susanna explains that the manifesto call for women’s active participation in techno-scientific research, feminist appropriation and incorporation of the technology. In short, it strategically functions in rethinking feminist agency.
Hari Kunzru’s article[4] on Donnaway’s ideas proved to be a very useful. Kunzru further explain Susanna’s interpretation that the purpose of the manifesto is to encourage us to rethink about what is natural today and possibility to change. Kunzru illustrated his point with example. Women were told that they were “naturally” weak, emotional, dependent, submissive, and so on, whereas male is strong, aggressive, independent, and so on. Thus they should stay at home and take care of children. If they think that these things are natural and it is what they should do. Their situation will never change. But, if these things are not natural but constructed, like they cyborg, both men and female can be reconstructed with the right tools. In addition, he suggests that modems are the center of cyborg politics. It is because cyborg not just about the freedom construction of yourself, it is about the network too. Meanwhile, Kunzru argued that we are all cyborg. He details the evolution of cyborg to clarify his thesis. In the initial stage, cyborg can be transcending human’s bodily limitations. The typical example of cyborg is Superman. Then we have robots, automata and artificial people from the western culture. Kunzru points out the difference between automata and today’s cyborg is “information”. In 90s, cyborg is accomplished creature and more domestic than 50’s ancestor. Retinal implants, cochlear implants, cosmetic surgery, and so forth. All of them are technology or machine work on our body. Make it simple, people who wear glasses can be considered is a cyborg, because people make use of glasses to help them seeing. Thus, I highly agree with Kunzru that we are cyborg.
Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu[5], on the one hand, argued that Frankenstein’s Monster initially is a cyborg, and, consequently, Donna Haraway’s cyborg is the modern version of Frankenstein’s monster. According to Haraway, the cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it is neither female, nor male, or both. Frankenstein’s monster is obviously a man. Can we consider it is a woman? It is transgressed of gender boundary. Vacarescu claim that gender uncertainty of the monster makes him a monster. In this sense, Vacarescu use Frankenstein as a metaphor to challenge Haraway’s ideas that the cyborg was crossing the boundary between male and female. She argues Haraway’s idea confused the gender boundaries and definitions.
In Rochelle Rodrigo’s article[6], she mentions that Haraway, on the other hand, emphasizes that the cyborg difference from Frankenstein’s monster. Rodrigo indicated that The Terminator (1984) was released when Haraway just published the “Cyborg Manifesto”. Some of the most notable bad images of cyborgs also include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Star Wars (1976), Blade Runner (1982) and Videodrome (1982). Haraway's choose to use some texts, such as Blade Runner, Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang (1969), Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975) and Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal (1983) which have a good image to demonstrate her ideas on the manifesto. Haraway’s good cyborg image is an amusing contrast to bad cyborg image.
In popular culture and many science fiction films, female cyborgs are always depticted as objects of pornography, iron maiden, innocence and being control, on the contrary, male cyborg is smart, intelligent and rebel. Ulrich Scheck’s article[7] examines gender relations in science fiction film and television from 1980 to present in popular culture in general. Scheck notes that female characters took the peripheral and unimportant roles in the science fiction universe in 60’s to early 70’s. However, representation of women has change start from the first movie of the Alien (1979) to the Star Trek Enterprise series (2001). Women, in this decade, have been depicted as scientists, explorers, mission leaders, and starship captains. Representations of women become more equal even surpassing men in traditional male-dominated roles. Scheck claim that gender roles become more fluid and less restrict to the binary concepts, like what Haraway has suggested. Moreover, the relationship between male and female should take some turns. Indeed, the representation of women has seemingly changed. However, I doubt that women can be surpassing men-dominated roles in science fiction universe. Moreover, the portrayal of cyborg characters reinforces gender binary. For instance, the Borg Queen in the Star Trek seems strong and powerful, but eventually, she loses to Data and the caption.
Conclusion
Donna Haraway's boardly referenced and dicussed "Cyborg Manifesto" has inspired researchers to rethink the hierarchical binary thinking and binary divisions, the boundaries between organic and inorganic, natural and artificial, and in particular, male and female. In addition, it encourage us to rethink the relationship between women and technologies. The ways in which how women are represent in film and popular culture, are seemingly change. I argue that the portrayal of cyborg characters in popular culture, to certain extent, still reinforces gender binary. Female characters still took the peripheral and unimportant roles in the science fiction universe. For instance, the female characters depicted in Matrix.
References:
[1] Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007.
[2] Senft, Theresa M. "Reading Notes on Donna Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto.'", 21 Oct 2001, http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe/writing/manifesto.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[3] Susanna, Paasonen. “Cyborg & Cyclops: the vision of a man-machine” http://www.translocal.net/susanna/cyborg_cyclops.pdf accessed 20 Mar 2007
[4] Hari Kunzru. ‘You are cyborg’, Wired Magazine, 5.02, (February 1997) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[5] Theodora-Eliza, Vacarescu. “From Frankenstein’s Monster to Haraway’s Cyborg” http://www.feminism.ro/book_gender_post/part4/Theo_Vacarescu.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[6] Rochelle Rodrigo. “Rochelle Rodrigo’s “Cyborging: Rhetoric Beyond
Donna Haraway and the Cyborg Manifesto”, The Journal of Advancing Technology, Volume 2 (Spring 2005) http://www.information-technology-college.com/subPages/insideTheTechnology/subpages/inthefield/subpages/journal/content/spring_2005/UAT_Journal_spring2005.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007
[7] Ulrich Scheck. “Where No Woman Has Gone Before: Humour and Gender Crossing in Star Trek’s Voyager and Enterpris” http://www.german.ubc.ca/GLM/bronnbach/WS1_Scheck_Web.pdf, accessed 20 Mar 2007
Webliography on cyberpunk by Shelia
Question 3: Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identify some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.
As a sub-genre of science fiction, the settings of cyberpunk are always related with a dark, polluted urban area, advanced technologies and criminal activities. Yet these settings have made its readers to associate cyberpunk with the unknown future. There are six online sources used in this webliography, located mostly from searching engines like Google Scholars and Yahoo with keywords like "cyberpunk", "technology innovation" and some cyberpunk movies or novels like "Martix" and "Neuromancer". In this webliography, the nature of cyberpunk will first be discussed, followed by different writers' viewpoints towards cyberpunk. A compare of their writings will be provided and followed by a summary.
What is cyberpunk? Christian Kirtchev has provided a detailed description of it in the website The Cyberpunk Project. (1999) The writer indicates that cyberpunk is an attitude how people react to the technological innovations in the future, when computers' are no longer fully under control of people. The computers begin to have their own feeling, the artificial intelligence.
In Cyberpunk in the Nineties, Bruce Sterling has pointed out that "... the cultural terrain had changed, and that made a lot of difference. Honest "technological literacy" in the 50's was exhilarating but disquieting - but in the high-tech 80's, "technological literacy" meant outright ecstasy and dread. Cyberpunk was weird, which obscured the basic simplicity of its theory- and- practice." (1998) He has made it clear that cyberpunk, according to his own opinion, has been a bypast. Human beings who have always tried to lay their hands on developing some imagined technological innovation are bound to fail. He used Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley as an example to explain that human's curiosity on technology and invention is mistaken since "there are Some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know", as "there are no mere physical mechanisms for this higher moral law - its workings transcend mortal understanding, it is something akin to divine will."
Apart from Sterling's view on the past of cyberpunk, another writer, Nobuo Kamioka in Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson's Neuromancer and the "Multimedia Revolution", provided her viewpoints on cyberpunk and future technologies. She used Gibson's Neuromancer as an example to indicate that the science-fiction genre is a prediction of the technological innovation, namely "the coming 'multimedia revolution'". (1998) The fourth part of her essay points out Gibson's weakness. When Gibson first published Neuromancer, it became popular more or less because of the imagination on how technology and future would be. However, during the late 1980s when Gibson publishes his second and third novels, "personal computers had spread widely and the Internet had started to be used by the masses. Gibson, at the same time, seems to bring the technologies in these novels closer to those which actually exist." It is found that his second and third works are not as creative as Neuromancer. Therefore, these works were not as popular as his previous one.
Another post, Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science was written by Mischa Peters and found in University Utrecht's website. Although this essay is a PhD Paper of the writer, she wrote something reflective related to cyberpunk and technological innovation. By first explaining what cyberpunk is, she stated that "cyberpunk novels are influenced... by the contemporary developments in science and they often display visions of the new technologies of today." (2000) And technology in cyberpunk has taken over "the role of biology" by means of using machineries as substitutes of human organs. She used William Gibson's novel Neuromancer as examples to explain that human bodies in this genre are often in conflict with the virtual body, or the imaginative body in cyberpunk novels or movies. By quoting Hollinger's writings (1991) about human beings in cyberpunk will soon lose credibility, she suggests that "New technologies are continually crossing once stable borders and are blurring familiar boundaries". This essay has posted a reflective warning that what could be seen in cyberpunk will eventually lead us to the foreseeable dead end – the dark, polluted urban area with advanced technologies fully or partially controlling human beings.
Gustavo Lins Ribeiro has posted the fear of human beings towards cyberpunk. The writer wrote in Bodies and Culture in the Cyberage. A review Essay (1997) that technology is crucial because "man's internal and external conditions is blurred". In cyberpunk, which is being connected to the world's technological future, human beings faced a complicated relationship with technology for their biological bodies will be "engineered, rebuilt, reshaped, and reconfigured" by machineries. On the one hand, human beings are waiting eagerly for the age of cyberpunk to come and wishing for technological advance. On the other hand, they are feared of "loosing memory, identity, integrity, agency, power and control".
With all the positive/negative connotations of the cyberpunk on movies and literatures, people might either be fear of or admire the future technological innovation. In Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: Meanings, Interest Groups, and Social Dynamics, Schummer has provided that the dehumanized world is a human alienation and is qualified as dystopia. Cyberpunk has always provided advancement in technology even if the technology innovation threatens the human beings. And people should have their own viewpoints towards cyberpunk. As he suggests, "Instead of conveying a simple moral message, it is rather up to readers to make their own positive or negative judgment on the fictional technology's impacts on society. While many readers might feel uncomfortable with such visions, Cyberpunk has... inspired many, if not all, visions of transhumanist utopia."
It is true that people should have their own understanding towards cyberpunk and not just believe in what the movies and literatures bought to them. As Kirtchev (1999) explained in the last few paragraphs, cyberpunk should be controlled and used for good. The writer brings out the idea that "it is not tech that makes your chances in the future world, tech just enhances them, if you use it right."
Sterling stated that cyberpunk is a reflection of the reality early in 1988 by pointing out that ""anti-humanist" conviction in cyberpunk is not simply some literary stunt to outrage the bourgeoisie; this is an objective fact about culture in the late twentieth century. Cyberpunk didn't invent this situation; it just reflects it." We have to understand that cyberpunk is nothing but a science-fiction genre, which should not hinder the future technological developments.
References
Sterling, Bruce. “ Cyberpunk in the Nineties”. Street Tech, 1998. Retrieved March 20, 2007, http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPtext/Manifestos/CPInThe90s.html
Peters, Mischa. “Mapping the Body in Cyberpunk Fiction and Science’. Universiterit Utrecht, September 29, 2000. Retrieved March 21, 2007, http://www.let.uu.nl/~Mischa.Peters/personal/bologna/paper.html
Kamioka, Nobuo. “Cyberpunk Revisited: William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the ‘Multimedia Revolution”. Meiji University, 1998. Retrieved March 21, 2007, http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jaas/periodicals/JJAS/PDF/1998/No.09-053.pdf
Gustavo Lins Ribeiro. “Bodies and Culture in the Cyberage. A review Essay”. Brasilia, 1997. Retrieved March 21, 2007, http://www.unb.br/ics/dan/Serie217empdf.pdf
Schummer, John. “Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology: Meanings, Interest Groups, and Social Dynamics”. University of Darmstadt, 2004. Retrieved March 23, 2007, http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v8n2/pdf/schummer.pdf
Kirtchev, Christian. “Cyberpunk Understood”. The Cyberpunk Project, December 5, 1999. Retrieved March 24, 2007, http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberpunk_understood.html
Isabel: Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto
Introduction
To this critical annotated webliography, it is talking about Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” for her declaration of “cyborg was female”. I have read the relevant material of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” before to search the online resource. Then I focused on the most important terms which appearing in the reading such as “female cyborg” or woman cyborg,” to search via the google .com, then I went through the source and chose the source which were most relevant my topic and after reading and confirm the resource, finally I located on the article such as “the world with out gender”; “Feminism and the technology of the body” written by Anat Tesler Mesika. These sources were useful to prove and use as to criticize of “cyborg was female”.
The cyborg always comes across in the aspect of popular culture such as science fiction, movies as well as artwork. In fact, both “cyborg” and the popular culture were mutually influenced. For instance, the article “When Technosicence Rewritten Biology” mentioned the science fictions which arise in 1970s such as Female male written by feminist Joanna Russ. In the fiction there are four female and three of female were living in the future world in an all female world. It was very closely to Haraways’s manifesto which emphasis the burring the binary of gender as it gives possibility to oppress the gender binary. To prove Haraway’s declaration of “cyborg is woman”, Ann Blasamo concluded in her study that differentiates between images of Cyborg-man and Cyborg-woman. The article mentions that cyborg are woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal; these stereotype characteristics enable a more radical blurring of an organic-mechanic hybridization.
Moreover, the article “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction” also point out that on the 60s and 70s, there were many women science fiction writer. Through their fiction, the female characters were masculine, touch and have ability to lead. Gender was reverse as the character of female are in more important position within the story, such as women could pilot a starship just as well as a man. The author believed that the new wave of women science fiction writer were question the male dominate constructed social and the nature of gender. Author utilized Marge Piercy and Joan Slonczewski’s science fiction, to examine how the cyborg used to be a new representation of gender and question, redefine gender. Though Marge Piercy and Joan Slonczewski’s story, the cyborg’s characters such as Malkah and later, Shira, program Yod to be the best of both genders. It was precisely, boundary between female and male was disappearing. These fictions have been linked with Donna Harraway's"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century."
Cyborg appeared in the science fiction movies frequently as well, it was useful to have critical analysis towards the concept of Haraway’s woman cyborg which represent in the film. For Dichotimic patterns and the Cyborg, Anat Tesler Mesika used haraway’s woman cyborg to find a possibility to escape from the binary opposition hierarchy society through the popular movies literature. However, these possibilities seldom appeared in the most of science fiction through author’s point of view. Through the “star trek”, the author analyzed three characters in the film just like woman “borg”. Her face was a mixture of animal, goodness and woman. It seems that it reflecting what have Haraway said, it is burring the boundaries of human, animal and machine. However, the author depicted it as a stereotyped woman as her female body was a cultural given. For the other character, the captain was a complete human man, and “data” was a complete technological robot. The movie was present the Woman “borg” battle with the human man, as a result the pure man and machine won. The woman “borg” who crossed the boundary has to destroy. It seems that the gender representation still in the situation of male dominated society. It can’t prove “Cyborg manifesto” which haraway mentioned “the Cyborg is a place where new images are not been build by fragments of old images. Anat Tesler Mesika couldn’t found any images in the texts and she emphasis that the hierarchy culture is not allowed the “other” existence.
To prove Haraway’s declaration of “cyborg is woman”, Ann Blasamo concluded in her study that differentiates between images of Cyborg-man and Cyborg-woman. The article mentions that cyborg are woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal; these stereotype characteristics enable a more radical blurring of an organic-mechanic hybridization.
Gender was represented through cyborg in art by the feminist. Through the article of The World without gender 1, author introduced many feminists as well as some feminist project, most of feminists are argue the how the gender/man being constructed under the patriarchy society. Through The World without Gender2, the idea of cyborg gives a possibility to resist the binary opposition.
The author also mentioned that, technosicence as a great impulse for Haraway’s cyborg. It provided a space for re-constructed history and writing woman. The artists find the inspiration through the new notion of the cyborg in their own works. Therefore, new technology created a new future in new histories that article mentioned.
Regarding to Stefan Marti’s Identity and Cyborg Body , he introduced a virtual game called MUD. We categorized this virtual game as a kind of advanced technosicence. Through the virtual world, the game players were cyborg, they can change their gender and identities easily. It seems that the gender boundaries were disappear but the fact that the female role still being stereotyped. Therefore, “cyborg manifesto in that way was invalid.
On the other hand, according to Wendy Harcourt through The World without Gender2, author remarked that technology stimulated the feminist studies to their own practice in particular, to exploring cyborg-feminism with work that addresses. The image of the cyborg presented as an artwork, just like Korean artist’s Cyborg sculptures and installations works. These new deconstruct the female body with the theory with Donna Haraway. Through the technologies therefore as a significant representation such as Lee Bul’s cyborg, which rooted in the issues of today in terms of genetics, science, technology, and sexuality, it proved Haraway’s manifesto and cyborg-feminism.
Conclusion
In conclude, I found that there were some online recourses such as article or research were putting Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” in a crucial position even based on her “Cyborg Manifesto” to development their own perspective of argument. Obviously, “Cyborg Manifesto” brought a great influence for feminist and also the popular culture. Although some of scholar interpreted Haraway’s manifesto were invalid, it still keeping question and to challenge gender binary and gain a possibility to ask a better tomorrow.
Reference:
Radin, Patricia, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.” The European Association fot the Study of Sicence and Technology,Volume 16(2). June 1997. 21 march .2007 < http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin>.
Summerhawk ,Barbara, “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction”, English and American Literature Department, July 8, 1998, 21.march.2007 <>.
Anar,Tesler Mesika, “Feminism and the technology of body: Dichotimic patterns and the Cyborg. ” Tel Aviv University, 22.march.2007, <http://www.tau.ac.il/~teslerme/cyborg%20talk.doc>.
“The world without gender1.” University at Buffalo,World Wide Web.
22 march. 2007 <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jhwhang/without%20gender1.htm>.
“The world without gender1.” University at Buffalo,World Wide Web. 22 march. 2007 <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jhwhang/haraway%20and%20Lee%20bul.htm>.
Marti, Stefan, “On Elizabeth Reid: Cultural Formations, Chapter Three: Identity and Cyborg Body.” 21march.2007 <http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/vsociety/ElizabethReid.html>.
To this critical annotated webliography, it is talking about Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” for her declaration of “cyborg was female”. I have read the relevant material of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” before to search the online resource. Then I focused on the most important terms which appearing in the reading such as “female cyborg” or woman cyborg,” to search via the google .com, then I went through the source and chose the source which were most relevant my topic and after reading and confirm the resource, finally I located on the article such as “the world with out gender”; “Feminism and the technology of the body” written by Anat Tesler Mesika. These sources were useful to prove and use as to criticize of “cyborg was female”.
The cyborg always comes across in the aspect of popular culture such as science fiction, movies as well as artwork. In fact, both “cyborg” and the popular culture were mutually influenced. For instance, the article “When Technosicence Rewritten Biology” mentioned the science fictions which arise in 1970s such as Female male written by feminist Joanna Russ. In the fiction there are four female and three of female were living in the future world in an all female world. It was very closely to Haraways’s manifesto which emphasis the burring the binary of gender as it gives possibility to oppress the gender binary. To prove Haraway’s declaration of “cyborg is woman”, Ann Blasamo concluded in her study that differentiates between images of Cyborg-man and Cyborg-woman. The article mentions that cyborg are woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal; these stereotype characteristics enable a more radical blurring of an organic-mechanic hybridization.
Moreover, the article “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction” also point out that on the 60s and 70s, there were many women science fiction writer. Through their fiction, the female characters were masculine, touch and have ability to lead. Gender was reverse as the character of female are in more important position within the story, such as women could pilot a starship just as well as a man. The author believed that the new wave of women science fiction writer were question the male dominate constructed social and the nature of gender. Author utilized Marge Piercy and Joan Slonczewski’s science fiction, to examine how the cyborg used to be a new representation of gender and question, redefine gender. Though Marge Piercy and Joan Slonczewski’s story, the cyborg’s characters such as Malkah and later, Shira, program Yod to be the best of both genders. It was precisely, boundary between female and male was disappearing. These fictions have been linked with Donna Harraway's"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century."
Cyborg appeared in the science fiction movies frequently as well, it was useful to have critical analysis towards the concept of Haraway’s woman cyborg which represent in the film. For Dichotimic patterns and the Cyborg, Anat Tesler Mesika used haraway’s woman cyborg to find a possibility to escape from the binary opposition hierarchy society through the popular movies literature. However, these possibilities seldom appeared in the most of science fiction through author’s point of view. Through the “star trek”, the author analyzed three characters in the film just like woman “borg”. Her face was a mixture of animal, goodness and woman. It seems that it reflecting what have Haraway said, it is burring the boundaries of human, animal and machine. However, the author depicted it as a stereotyped woman as her female body was a cultural given. For the other character, the captain was a complete human man, and “data” was a complete technological robot. The movie was present the Woman “borg” battle with the human man, as a result the pure man and machine won. The woman “borg” who crossed the boundary has to destroy. It seems that the gender representation still in the situation of male dominated society. It can’t prove “Cyborg manifesto” which haraway mentioned “the Cyborg is a place where new images are not been build by fragments of old images. Anat Tesler Mesika couldn’t found any images in the texts and she emphasis that the hierarchy culture is not allowed the “other” existence.
To prove Haraway’s declaration of “cyborg is woman”, Ann Blasamo concluded in her study that differentiates between images of Cyborg-man and Cyborg-woman. The article mentions that cyborg are woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal; these stereotype characteristics enable a more radical blurring of an organic-mechanic hybridization.
Gender was represented through cyborg in art by the feminist. Through the article of The World without gender 1, author introduced many feminists as well as some feminist project, most of feminists are argue the how the gender/man being constructed under the patriarchy society. Through The World without Gender2, the idea of cyborg gives a possibility to resist the binary opposition.
The author also mentioned that, technosicence as a great impulse for Haraway’s cyborg. It provided a space for re-constructed history and writing woman. The artists find the inspiration through the new notion of the cyborg in their own works. Therefore, new technology created a new future in new histories that article mentioned.
Regarding to Stefan Marti’s Identity and Cyborg Body , he introduced a virtual game called MUD. We categorized this virtual game as a kind of advanced technosicence. Through the virtual world, the game players were cyborg, they can change their gender and identities easily. It seems that the gender boundaries were disappear but the fact that the female role still being stereotyped. Therefore, “cyborg manifesto in that way was invalid.
On the other hand, according to Wendy Harcourt through The World without Gender2, author remarked that technology stimulated the feminist studies to their own practice in particular, to exploring cyborg-feminism with work that addresses. The image of the cyborg presented as an artwork, just like Korean artist’s Cyborg sculptures and installations works. These new deconstruct the female body with the theory with Donna Haraway. Through the technologies therefore as a significant representation such as Lee Bul’s cyborg, which rooted in the issues of today in terms of genetics, science, technology, and sexuality, it proved Haraway’s manifesto and cyborg-feminism.
Conclusion
In conclude, I found that there were some online recourses such as article or research were putting Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” in a crucial position even based on her “Cyborg Manifesto” to development their own perspective of argument. Obviously, “Cyborg Manifesto” brought a great influence for feminist and also the popular culture. Although some of scholar interpreted Haraway’s manifesto were invalid, it still keeping question and to challenge gender binary and gain a possibility to ask a better tomorrow.
Reference:
Radin, Patricia, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.” The European Association fot the Study of Sicence and Technology,Volume 16(2). June 1997. 21 march .2007 < http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin>.
Summerhawk ,Barbara, “He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs Gender in Post Modern Science Fiction”, English and American Literature Department, July 8, 1998, 21.march.2007 <>.
Anar,Tesler Mesika, “Feminism and the technology of body: Dichotimic patterns and the Cyborg. ” Tel Aviv University, 22.march.2007, <http://www.tau.ac.il/~teslerme/cyborg%20talk.doc>.
“The world without gender1.” University at Buffalo,World Wide Web.
22 march. 2007 <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jhwhang/without%20gender1.htm>.
“The world without gender1.” University at Buffalo,World Wide Web. 22 march. 2007 <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jhwhang/haraway%20and%20Lee%20bul.htm>.
Marti, Stefan, “On Elizabeth Reid: Cultural Formations, Chapter Three: Identity and Cyborg Body.” 21march.2007 <http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/vsociety/ElizabethReid.html>.
Man's Critical Annotated Webliography
Question 3: Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that literally imagines our future. Identity some of the associations between (written or cinematic) cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.
Introduction:
According to the guiding question, I would like to use the keywords such as ‘Cyberpunk’, ‘Technological Innovation’ and ‘Cyberculture’ to search via Google (http://www.google.com), Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) and Google Scholar (http://www.scholar.google.com). At first the result I located were too broad, got plenty of non-academic information. After I narrow down the searching by using bulletin words its better, however, I still need to check the credibility of this information. I used several days for searching the information that I need. I still want to say; I really flooded by the information this week!! After I check the credibility, I had located 7 articles for my assignment.
In the following essay, I would like to demonstrate those article’s summaries, then I would like to compare those articles for present the relationship between cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.
Webliography:
In “What is Cyberpunk” [1], it had give a simple definition by using one sentence, ‘Cyberpunk is about expressing (often dark) ideas about human nature, technology and their respective combination in the near future.’ SFMA. Moreover, it also states some characteristics of Cyberpunk for people to have a basic idea of this genre, for example, the story will focuses on the underground which the world is damaged as a dystopia and the protagonists are always deal with access to information or hackers, also the boundary between human and machines is also blurred in the Cyberpunk would. However, I think it didn’t explain deeply about what cyberpunk really is to the ‘new comer of Cyberculture’, such as where the name comes from or the history of Cyberpunk. In this way, I think “Cyberpunk” [2] and “History of Cyberpunk” [3] have present a very clear information of that, such as provide some example and timeline to explain the development of Cyberpunk. At least, after read the website, people will know that the word ‘Cyberpunk’ is first appeared as the title of a short story by Bruce Bethke.
‘Technology is integral to Cyberpunk’ is the first sentence extract from “Evaluation of the Importance of Technology to Cyberpunk” [4] which stated the close relationship between Cyberpunk and technology. In this article, it had stated that cyberpunk is all about ‘near future’. The writer will predict and foresee the development of the technology and the future world, but they will be ‘grounded in reality’. The imaginary future world is no longer inspired with ‘fantastic imagery’ but ‘extrapolated from current technological and sociological conditions’ which become more current and believable than the traditional SF. This can be seem as the main different between traditional Science Fiction and the Cyberpunk, and the difference had distinguishes Cyberpunk’s unique. As a result, technology is very important to Cyberpunk, because it is playing a ‘realistic’ and ‘near future’ role for Cyberpunk, otherwise, Cyberpunk would completely lose its significance.
Donna Haraway is a academic scholar on Cyborg. In class, we always questioned on why Donna Haraway assigns Cyborg as Female? Or is the SF movie had been gendered? etc. “Razor girls: Genre and Gender in Cyberpunk Fiction” [5] is a journal article from a Woman Magazine, Lauraine Leblanc is a doctor in Women’s Studies from Emory University. In the article, there have large coverage on Cyberpunk Gender, such as she pointed out that in Cyberpunk film, most of the cyborgs are male (e.g. Johnny Mnemonic) however, literary Cyberpunk fictions are ‘dominated by female cyborg characters’, and also there have some example of cyborg characters which ‘transform gender’.
Moreover, in this article, it stated that there have three central themes which make Cyberpunk different from other mainstream science fictions: ‘futurology, techno-paradigms, and the cyborg presence’. The cyberpunk present a ‘non-apocalyptic’ view of future, and the ‘futuristic extrapolation of current social and economic trends’. Also, the central theme of cyberpunk is ‘advanced communications technology’ and the fusion of human and machine because Lauraine Leblanc said ‘in cyberpunk fiction, computers are also artists, people are also machines, and nature is also technology.’
In the article, ‘Future Shock: Night City 2020” [6], I think it’s quite different from the above articles. At the beginning of the article, it state that ‘today, science fiction equals cyberpunk.’ quite different from what “Evaluation of the Importance of Technology to Cyberpunk” [4] said. According this reading, it had state out some of the movement or event during the 60s, 70s, and 80s which the era of cyberpunk. In the middle of the article, it had a large coverage about dystopia and it state that ‘cyberpunk dystopias often have strong political qualities and… are basically capitalist dystopias’. Moreover, I think this article is using Cyberpunk to take about our ‘real world’, the technology is developing, the weapons, the conflict between global…as the author said, ‘the cyberpunk nightmare will come true….’
When I was searching about Cyberpunk via WWW, an article suddenly came out; it is not exactly about Cyberpunk, but Postcyberpunk. As I know, the word ‘post’ is meaning something ‘after’. In “Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto” [7] Lawrence Person had mention about several characteristic of (differences between) Cyberpunk and Postcyberpunk. Cyberpunk characters are lived in a dystrophic future and they had a large connect with the rapid change technology. On the other hand, Postcyberpunk characters are live in future, but not necessarily dystopia, but they are still influence by the technology. Lawrence Person had mention about Isaac Asimov ‘Three Orders of SF’ to describe Cyberpunk and Postcyberpunk.
In this article, I think it had many examples of writer and science fiction, if people want to check out this website, they better have a good information background of the science fiction works.
For the above webliographies, I would like to do a little sum-up analysis. Firstly, most of the article I found are define Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of SF, as it’s different from SF, there have several characteristics which make it more current and believable than the traditional SF: Cyberpunk fiction have several characteristics: focus on technology, extrapolate from current social, economic and technology trends so that they can foresee a ‘near future’ and form a ‘imaginary world’ for their story. The Cyberpunk world had depict as a dystopia and socially disorder. Secondly, there have an important relationship between technological innovation and Cyberpunk. The technology keeps on changing people perspective and also cyberpunk world, as the technology develop, the cyberpunk world will changed constantly. Lastly, as mentioned above, the boundary of human and machines are blurred, in a Cyberpunk world there will have some cyborgs present, that is the combination of organism and mechanism.
The [6] article are not really relevant to the guiding question, but I think it had question us about: as we can see from the “Future Shock: Night City 2020” [6], we seems walk to Cyberpunk world step by step, no longer is fiction, no longer is film, but a real Cyberpunk world.
Reference:
[1] SFAM. “What is Cyberpunk?” Cyberpunk Review. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/>
[2] H.J. “Cyberpunk” Media In Transition. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/science_fiction/jenkins/jenkins_5.html>
[3] “History of Cyberpunk” Cyberpunk Project. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/history.html
[4] “Evaluation of the Importance of Technology to Cyberpunk” Cyberpunk Project. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/importance_of_technology_to_cyberpunk.html>
[5] Leblanc, Lauraine. “Razor girls: Genre and Gender in Cyberpunk Fiction” Women and Language 20 (1997). 25 Mar. 2007 <http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/genre_and_gender_in_cyberpunk_fiction.html>
[6] “Future Shock: Night City 2020” Exploring Dystopia. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://hem.passagen.se/replikant/cyberpunk.htm>
[7] Person, Lawrence. “Notes toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto” Era Cyberpunk. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://eracyberpunk.altervista.org/notes_toward_a_postcyberpunk_manifesto.htm>
Introduction:
According to the guiding question, I would like to use the keywords such as ‘Cyberpunk’, ‘Technological Innovation’ and ‘Cyberculture’ to search via Google (http://www.google.com), Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) and Google Scholar (http://www.scholar.google.com). At first the result I located were too broad, got plenty of non-academic information. After I narrow down the searching by using bulletin words its better, however, I still need to check the credibility of this information. I used several days for searching the information that I need. I still want to say; I really flooded by the information this week!! After I check the credibility, I had located 7 articles for my assignment.
In the following essay, I would like to demonstrate those article’s summaries, then I would like to compare those articles for present the relationship between cyberpunk and technological innovation in the popular imagination.
Webliography:
In “What is Cyberpunk” [1], it had give a simple definition by using one sentence, ‘Cyberpunk is about expressing (often dark) ideas about human nature, technology and their respective combination in the near future.’ SFMA. Moreover, it also states some characteristics of Cyberpunk for people to have a basic idea of this genre, for example, the story will focuses on the underground which the world is damaged as a dystopia and the protagonists are always deal with access to information or hackers, also the boundary between human and machines is also blurred in the Cyberpunk would. However, I think it didn’t explain deeply about what cyberpunk really is to the ‘new comer of Cyberculture’, such as where the name comes from or the history of Cyberpunk. In this way, I think “Cyberpunk” [2] and “History of Cyberpunk” [3] have present a very clear information of that, such as provide some example and timeline to explain the development of Cyberpunk. At least, after read the website, people will know that the word ‘Cyberpunk’ is first appeared as the title of a short story by Bruce Bethke.
‘Technology is integral to Cyberpunk’ is the first sentence extract from “Evaluation of the Importance of Technology to Cyberpunk” [4] which stated the close relationship between Cyberpunk and technology. In this article, it had stated that cyberpunk is all about ‘near future’. The writer will predict and foresee the development of the technology and the future world, but they will be ‘grounded in reality’. The imaginary future world is no longer inspired with ‘fantastic imagery’ but ‘extrapolated from current technological and sociological conditions’ which become more current and believable than the traditional SF. This can be seem as the main different between traditional Science Fiction and the Cyberpunk, and the difference had distinguishes Cyberpunk’s unique. As a result, technology is very important to Cyberpunk, because it is playing a ‘realistic’ and ‘near future’ role for Cyberpunk, otherwise, Cyberpunk would completely lose its significance.
Donna Haraway is a academic scholar on Cyborg. In class, we always questioned on why Donna Haraway assigns Cyborg as Female? Or is the SF movie had been gendered? etc. “Razor girls: Genre and Gender in Cyberpunk Fiction” [5] is a journal article from a Woman Magazine, Lauraine Leblanc is a doctor in Women’s Studies from Emory University. In the article, there have large coverage on Cyberpunk Gender, such as she pointed out that in Cyberpunk film, most of the cyborgs are male (e.g. Johnny Mnemonic) however, literary Cyberpunk fictions are ‘dominated by female cyborg characters’, and also there have some example of cyborg characters which ‘transform gender’.
Moreover, in this article, it stated that there have three central themes which make Cyberpunk different from other mainstream science fictions: ‘futurology, techno-paradigms, and the cyborg presence’. The cyberpunk present a ‘non-apocalyptic’ view of future, and the ‘futuristic extrapolation of current social and economic trends’. Also, the central theme of cyberpunk is ‘advanced communications technology’ and the fusion of human and machine because Lauraine Leblanc said ‘in cyberpunk fiction, computers are also artists, people are also machines, and nature is also technology.’
In the article, ‘Future Shock: Night City 2020” [6], I think it’s quite different from the above articles. At the beginning of the article, it state that ‘today, science fiction equals cyberpunk.’ quite different from what “Evaluation of the Importance of Technology to Cyberpunk” [4] said. According this reading, it had state out some of the movement or event during the 60s, 70s, and 80s which the era of cyberpunk. In the middle of the article, it had a large coverage about dystopia and it state that ‘cyberpunk dystopias often have strong political qualities and… are basically capitalist dystopias’. Moreover, I think this article is using Cyberpunk to take about our ‘real world’, the technology is developing, the weapons, the conflict between global…as the author said, ‘the cyberpunk nightmare will come true….’
When I was searching about Cyberpunk via WWW, an article suddenly came out; it is not exactly about Cyberpunk, but Postcyberpunk. As I know, the word ‘post’ is meaning something ‘after’. In “Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto” [7] Lawrence Person had mention about several characteristic of (differences between) Cyberpunk and Postcyberpunk. Cyberpunk characters are lived in a dystrophic future and they had a large connect with the rapid change technology. On the other hand, Postcyberpunk characters are live in future, but not necessarily dystopia, but they are still influence by the technology. Lawrence Person had mention about Isaac Asimov ‘Three Orders of SF’ to describe Cyberpunk and Postcyberpunk.
In this article, I think it had many examples of writer and science fiction, if people want to check out this website, they better have a good information background of the science fiction works.
For the above webliographies, I would like to do a little sum-up analysis. Firstly, most of the article I found are define Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of SF, as it’s different from SF, there have several characteristics which make it more current and believable than the traditional SF: Cyberpunk fiction have several characteristics: focus on technology, extrapolate from current social, economic and technology trends so that they can foresee a ‘near future’ and form a ‘imaginary world’ for their story. The Cyberpunk world had depict as a dystopia and socially disorder. Secondly, there have an important relationship between technological innovation and Cyberpunk. The technology keeps on changing people perspective and also cyberpunk world, as the technology develop, the cyberpunk world will changed constantly. Lastly, as mentioned above, the boundary of human and machines are blurred, in a Cyberpunk world there will have some cyborgs present, that is the combination of organism and mechanism.
The [6] article are not really relevant to the guiding question, but I think it had question us about: as we can see from the “Future Shock: Night City 2020” [6], we seems walk to Cyberpunk world step by step, no longer is fiction, no longer is film, but a real Cyberpunk world.
Reference:
[1] SFAM. “What is Cyberpunk?” Cyberpunk Review. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/what-is-cyberpunk/>
[2] H.J. “Cyberpunk” Media In Transition. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/science_fiction/jenkins/jenkins_5.html>
[3] “History of Cyberpunk” Cyberpunk Project. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/history.html
[4] “Evaluation of the Importance of Technology to Cyberpunk” Cyberpunk Project. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/importance_of_technology_to_cyberpunk.html>
[5] Leblanc, Lauraine. “Razor girls: Genre and Gender in Cyberpunk Fiction” Women and Language 20 (1997). 25 Mar. 2007 <http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/genre_and_gender_in_cyberpunk_fiction.html>
[6] “Future Shock: Night City 2020” Exploring Dystopia. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://hem.passagen.se/replikant/cyberpunk.htm>
[7] Person, Lawrence. “Notes toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto” Era Cyberpunk. 25 Mar. 2007 <http://eracyberpunk.altervista.org/notes_toward_a_postcyberpunk_manifesto.htm>
Critical Annotated Webilography
Guiding Question: In Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Mainfesto’, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what way is gender significant in the representation of the cyborg in popular culture and technoscience?
In this webliography, I will focus on female cyborgs in different aspect. There are six sources I want to focus on in the following part; they are all online resources in the World Wide Web. As I have to make sure of the credibility of the materials, I have used the Google Scholar search engine and Google search engine to find these sources. Then I double check the authors’ name to make sure they are author of any printed materials such as journals, articles and books. After reading these six web materials, I try to focus on the representation of female cyborg in science fiction films and cyberpunk films. Also, I will focus on the webs’ quotations of Haraway’s idea of cyborg and their interpretation of Haraway’s idea.
Begins with the first source, ‘The "Nature" of the Female Cyborg: Evidence of Will in the Mechanical Woman’, is analyzing the film, Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, which is a good example of female cyborg in science fiction film. In the story, Maria is a female cyborg made by Johhan. She is typically a man’s ideal woman. She is controlled by the male creator, Johhan, who try to use her as a tool to tempt men and follow what she says and finally he is controlling all of them. The article states that the female cyborg is seen as sex object and it is man’s fantasy to have such a cyborg. But the female cyborg is also seen as a threat to the man as Maria is a female fatale who is powerful to destroy man.
In the second source, ‘The Cyborg Self’, the author have also mention about the female cyborg is treated as sexual object. ‘Female cyborg is the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology wit the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg’s transgression of the human/machine distinction.’ Female cyborg is not only the mix of machine and woman but also man. It physically is the female body figure made by metal collage and machines. At the same time, it contains the mix of masculine and feminine. This combination breaks the distinction between human and machine. ‘The manipulation and ownership of these female bodies by masculinist Western science and patriarchal corporations and governments place this constructed femininity in a subordinate order.’ As we are living in a patriarchal society, female is always in subordinate position. Therefore, cyborg in female figure will also be subordinated in the society. In science fiction, ‘Female cyborg is endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits.’ This mean the female cyborg is created to be the ideal women figure which fulfills the male fantasy for example, large breasts and slim waist. Both of the articles mention the female cyborg in science fiction with the similar angle which sees the female body being exploited by the male gaze.
Female cyborg seems represented a bit different in another kind of film. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film. The time of the film usually set in near future and focuses on technology, computer and dystopian world. In the third source, DeVincentis make a great analyze of a cyberpunk film, Jonny Mnemonic. In the film, the male protagonist and female lead both are cyborg who sexually and physically in a reverse. The male protagonist is weak that he can not fight and need the female lead to save him and help him out of risk. ‘The gender roles are reversed. As a result of technology, "female" takes on "masculine" characteristics of physical strength and resourcefulness. On the other hand, "male" takes on "feminine" characteristics: he becomes the carrier/object (rather than subject) of important information.’ This film gives a positive representation of being a female cyborg as the female lead is not an invention of man but rather choose to be a cyborg by her own will. She takes control of her own body and she is representing a heroine to save the male protagonist. The author thinks that ,‘Although the technology rendering both Johnny and Jane cyborgs breaks down the solidity of the female and male body, it also seems to indicate that without the technology, both would return to their "natural states."’ To see in other angle, technology gives us more choices to choose from. We are able to choose what we want and not tired up with the sex organs anymore. It is similar to Haraway suggestion of cyborg can be empowering particularly for women.
In the fourth and fifth sources, they both mention Haraway theory in their article about female cyborg. They all give Haraway’s definition of cyborg and the break down of the boundaries. In ‘Cyborgs and Feminists’, the author focuses on a broader vision of female cyborg in traditional science fiction film, conventional identity of cyborg which ‘seems that the cyborg image is used to create a female identity that is at once familiar, frightening and titillating to male viewers.’ But in Haraway’s vision, cyborg is a tool to combat the male and female binary. In ‘Female Cyborg’, the author has a different idea of cyborg. ‘Feminist cyborgs are the agent of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of “patriarchal capitalism.”’ Feminism cyborg represents technological embodiment to against conventional society.
And in the last source, ‘CyberPsychology & Behavior’, the author stated that the machine usual serves merely to reinforce the gender dynamics currently at play. The author wants to show us the World Wide Web nowadays reinforce conventional notions of masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality for the cyborgs image in the net which is not ideal of Haraway’s theory, new kinds of boundary still exists.
Cyborg is usually created as female gender. In science fiction films, they construct a conventional female cyborg as sexual object for male. The female cyborg is being exploited by the male gaze that the cyborg has to fit the ‘ideal’ female appearance. In cyberpunk films, the status have a bit different as it accepts the reverse of the male and female gender position and female are free to choose their appearance or ability. It fit Haraway’s theory of boundary breakdowns. However, the dominant female cyborg image is still following the conventional trend. It will not be an easy task to change the deep-rooted social institution of female subordination. At least we can be alert of the social institution.
Bibliography:
DeVincentis, A. ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ (1996)
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/amanda/johnny.htm (accessed 23 March 2007)
DeVoss, D. ‘CyberPsychology & Behavior, Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web’ (Oct 2000)
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/10949310050191818(accessed 21 March 2007)
Dhamee, Y. ‘CyBorgs and Feminists’ (14 April 2005)
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/ydcyborg.html (accessed 21 March 2007)
Duran, L, ‘The Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed 22 March 2007)
Myman, F. ‘The “Nature” of the Female Cyborg: Evidence of will in the Mechanical Woman’ (1999)
http://www.cyrune.com/Metropolis.html (accessed 23 March 2007)
Nagle, P. ‘The Cybrog Self’ (2006)
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed 21 March 2007)
In this webliography, I will focus on female cyborgs in different aspect. There are six sources I want to focus on in the following part; they are all online resources in the World Wide Web. As I have to make sure of the credibility of the materials, I have used the Google Scholar search engine and Google search engine to find these sources. Then I double check the authors’ name to make sure they are author of any printed materials such as journals, articles and books. After reading these six web materials, I try to focus on the representation of female cyborg in science fiction films and cyberpunk films. Also, I will focus on the webs’ quotations of Haraway’s idea of cyborg and their interpretation of Haraway’s idea.
Begins with the first source, ‘The "Nature" of the Female Cyborg: Evidence of Will in the Mechanical Woman’, is analyzing the film, Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, which is a good example of female cyborg in science fiction film. In the story, Maria is a female cyborg made by Johhan. She is typically a man’s ideal woman. She is controlled by the male creator, Johhan, who try to use her as a tool to tempt men and follow what she says and finally he is controlling all of them. The article states that the female cyborg is seen as sex object and it is man’s fantasy to have such a cyborg. But the female cyborg is also seen as a threat to the man as Maria is a female fatale who is powerful to destroy man.
In the second source, ‘The Cyborg Self’, the author have also mention about the female cyborg is treated as sexual object. ‘Female cyborg is the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology wit the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg’s transgression of the human/machine distinction.’ Female cyborg is not only the mix of machine and woman but also man. It physically is the female body figure made by metal collage and machines. At the same time, it contains the mix of masculine and feminine. This combination breaks the distinction between human and machine. ‘The manipulation and ownership of these female bodies by masculinist Western science and patriarchal corporations and governments place this constructed femininity in a subordinate order.’ As we are living in a patriarchal society, female is always in subordinate position. Therefore, cyborg in female figure will also be subordinated in the society. In science fiction, ‘Female cyborg is endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits.’ This mean the female cyborg is created to be the ideal women figure which fulfills the male fantasy for example, large breasts and slim waist. Both of the articles mention the female cyborg in science fiction with the similar angle which sees the female body being exploited by the male gaze.
Female cyborg seems represented a bit different in another kind of film. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film. The time of the film usually set in near future and focuses on technology, computer and dystopian world. In the third source, DeVincentis make a great analyze of a cyberpunk film, Jonny Mnemonic. In the film, the male protagonist and female lead both are cyborg who sexually and physically in a reverse. The male protagonist is weak that he can not fight and need the female lead to save him and help him out of risk. ‘The gender roles are reversed. As a result of technology, "female" takes on "masculine" characteristics of physical strength and resourcefulness. On the other hand, "male" takes on "feminine" characteristics: he becomes the carrier/object (rather than subject) of important information.’ This film gives a positive representation of being a female cyborg as the female lead is not an invention of man but rather choose to be a cyborg by her own will. She takes control of her own body and she is representing a heroine to save the male protagonist. The author thinks that ,‘Although the technology rendering both Johnny and Jane cyborgs breaks down the solidity of the female and male body, it also seems to indicate that without the technology, both would return to their "natural states."’ To see in other angle, technology gives us more choices to choose from. We are able to choose what we want and not tired up with the sex organs anymore. It is similar to Haraway suggestion of cyborg can be empowering particularly for women.
In the fourth and fifth sources, they both mention Haraway theory in their article about female cyborg. They all give Haraway’s definition of cyborg and the break down of the boundaries. In ‘Cyborgs and Feminists’, the author focuses on a broader vision of female cyborg in traditional science fiction film, conventional identity of cyborg which ‘seems that the cyborg image is used to create a female identity that is at once familiar, frightening and titillating to male viewers.’ But in Haraway’s vision, cyborg is a tool to combat the male and female binary. In ‘Female Cyborg’, the author has a different idea of cyborg. ‘Feminist cyborgs are the agent of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of “patriarchal capitalism.”’ Feminism cyborg represents technological embodiment to against conventional society.
And in the last source, ‘CyberPsychology & Behavior’, the author stated that the machine usual serves merely to reinforce the gender dynamics currently at play. The author wants to show us the World Wide Web nowadays reinforce conventional notions of masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality for the cyborgs image in the net which is not ideal of Haraway’s theory, new kinds of boundary still exists.
Cyborg is usually created as female gender. In science fiction films, they construct a conventional female cyborg as sexual object for male. The female cyborg is being exploited by the male gaze that the cyborg has to fit the ‘ideal’ female appearance. In cyberpunk films, the status have a bit different as it accepts the reverse of the male and female gender position and female are free to choose their appearance or ability. It fit Haraway’s theory of boundary breakdowns. However, the dominant female cyborg image is still following the conventional trend. It will not be an easy task to change the deep-rooted social institution of female subordination. At least we can be alert of the social institution.
Bibliography:
DeVincentis, A. ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ (1996)
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/amanda/johnny.htm (accessed 23 March 2007)
DeVoss, D. ‘CyberPsychology & Behavior, Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web’ (Oct 2000)
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/10949310050191818(accessed 21 March 2007)
Dhamee, Y. ‘CyBorgs and Feminists’ (14 April 2005)
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/ydcyborg.html (accessed 21 March 2007)
Duran, L, ‘The Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed 22 March 2007)
Myman, F. ‘The “Nature” of the Female Cyborg: Evidence of will in the Mechanical Woman’ (1999)
http://www.cyrune.com/Metropolis.html (accessed 23 March 2007)
Nagle, P. ‘The Cybrog Self’ (2006)
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed 21 March 2007)
Twinie's Critical Annotated Webliography: Question 1
Q1. In Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what way is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?
Firstly, this webliogrphy are refers to a bibliography consisting completely of material found online. Therefore, start my online searches, I am search trains of google.com has been made use of “Cyborg Manifesto and cyborg a female gender” for searching the majority useful online materials. There are exposed many outcomes such as online journals, online books and online essays etc. Lastly, I have found the majority useful six online sources and concise critical summary of that material in relation to my guiding questions.
Theresa M. Senft’s [1] article was very useful in understanding background information on Haraway and her ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. This article points out Haraway how feminists have deployed the idea of “women’s experience” and the cyborg will “change what counts as experience” for women. Theresa M. Senft’s explains Haraway understands why the world’s poorest women are the ones who experience the majority from technological progress. Haraway particulars her writing plans for producing her Manifesto, which is a grouping of “blasphemy” and ironic bounciness. She introduces and defines her main metaphor the cyborg. She addresses the information that cyborgs are a feature of the present, rather than the future, by talk about three existing “border crossings”: the blurring of animal and human; human and machine; and the physical and non-physics. As of its descent in the equipped industrial multifaceted, Haraway alludes to the cyborg as a “monster.” She suggestions the cyborg is a form that demonstrate assure for feminism, in separation as it appears to her to be fake to its martial origins. She powerfully criticizes the radical feminism of Catherine MacKinnon, arguing that the search for the “essential woman” is not simply indefinable, it is dangerous. In fact, feminist might be improved served, Haraway bearing in mind “woman” to be a socially made group, deployed in a communications network, all along the position of “homosexual and “youth.”
In Hari Kunzru’s [2] article was try masculine partiality in scientific culture and sees herself as the troubled “modest witness” of the ethical maelstrom of hereditary engineering. She's too become a heroine to a production of women who are starting to call themselves cyberfeminists. Hari Kunzru’s support Haraway calls it “an ironic political myth.” It pulls off the not small deception of turning the cyborg from an image of Cold War power into a symbol of feminist liberation. Hari Kunzru’s analysis cyberfeminism is not an expression Haraway uses in combination through technology; it’s expected to construct your identity, your sexuality, even your gender. The cyberfeminists raise the roof in polymorphous perversity.
Luciano Duran’s [3] is explains Haraway essay “The Manifesto for Cyborgs”, a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a combination of technology and biology, a creature of both social actuality and fiction. Luciano Duran’s anaylsis the Cyborg feminists have to argue that any additional natural matrix of unity. In support of Haraway’s, Chela Sandoval states that, the cyborg skills necessary for patience under techno-human state of affairs. The feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological image of an oppositional consciousness and the illegal progeny of “patriarchal capitalism” that know how to be described as US Third World Feminism.
In this site [4], the author argue the traditions of “Western” science and politics, for examples, the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as supply for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflect image of the other. And then, the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. The bets in the border war have been the countries of production, reproduction, and imagination.
Carolyn Keen’s [5] analysis Haraway essay are race, gender, and class are in the procedure of alteration. The tools for analysis: Marxist, psychoanalytic, feminist, anthropological. The cyborg evades traditional humanist concepts of women as childbearer and the heterosexual marriage-nuclear family, transcendentalism and Biblical narrative, fright of death, fright of automatism, persistence upon consistency and wholeness. It tries to create difficult binary oppositions, which have been “systemic to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of color, nature, workers, and animals.” Haraway argues socialist-feminist politics is all the way through theory and practice addressed to the social relations of science and technology. The relation between science and technology by feminists, which women need to be conscious of disparage. Haraway's analysis of “women in the integrated circuit” attempts to suggest, knowledge to organize these technologies, to “read these webs of power”. A socialist-feminist politics have to deal with these restructurings.
In this site [6], the author explains her article, "A Cyborg Manifesto", Haraway trys to create what she calls “an ironic political myth” which combines postmodernism with socialist feminism. Central to her myth is the icon of the cyborg, which is a cybernetic creature, a irritated of machine and a creature of social reality. In addition, the cyborg is a being in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, or other seductions to natural wholeness throughout a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a senior agreement. As the cyborg does not be as nature or culture, but is rather a mixture of more, it is not incomplete by traditional binarisms. The cyborg is as a kind of free self. The cyborg is polymorphous perversity. As a result, Haraway’s cyborg myth is “about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political work.” The myth put in prisons the “contradictory, partial and strategic” identities of the postmodern age. The cyborg myth has the possible for radical political develop as it frees feminists from a anxious explore for comparison with one another, as physical boundary breaks able to be extrapolated to political boundary crossings.
In conclusion, Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, she assigns her cyborg a female gender. She hints the cyborg is a figure that show “promise” for feminism, in part because it appears to her to be unfaithful to its militaristic origins. The different authors have dissimilar idea to the relationship of cyborg a female gender or not. In addition, the cyborg is may be creature in a gender or post-gender world; it has may be or no truck with bisexuality, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity. So, gender can be significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience.
References:
[1] Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto.’” (21 October 2001.) http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe/writing/manifesto.html
(accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[2] Kunzru, Hari. “You Are Cyborg.” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[3] Duran, Luciano. “Female Cyborg.” http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[4] “Cyborg” http://www.centenary.edu/etc/cyborg (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[5] Keen, Carolyn. “Carolyn Keen on Haraway, ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/keen2.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[6] http://www.stumptuous.com/comps/cyborg.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
Firstly, this webliogrphy are refers to a bibliography consisting completely of material found online. Therefore, start my online searches, I am search trains of google.com has been made use of “Cyborg Manifesto and cyborg a female gender” for searching the majority useful online materials. There are exposed many outcomes such as online journals, online books and online essays etc. Lastly, I have found the majority useful six online sources and concise critical summary of that material in relation to my guiding questions.
Theresa M. Senft’s [1] article was very useful in understanding background information on Haraway and her ‘Cyborg Manifesto’. This article points out Haraway how feminists have deployed the idea of “women’s experience” and the cyborg will “change what counts as experience” for women. Theresa M. Senft’s explains Haraway understands why the world’s poorest women are the ones who experience the majority from technological progress. Haraway particulars her writing plans for producing her Manifesto, which is a grouping of “blasphemy” and ironic bounciness. She introduces and defines her main metaphor the cyborg. She addresses the information that cyborgs are a feature of the present, rather than the future, by talk about three existing “border crossings”: the blurring of animal and human; human and machine; and the physical and non-physics. As of its descent in the equipped industrial multifaceted, Haraway alludes to the cyborg as a “monster.” She suggestions the cyborg is a form that demonstrate assure for feminism, in separation as it appears to her to be fake to its martial origins. She powerfully criticizes the radical feminism of Catherine MacKinnon, arguing that the search for the “essential woman” is not simply indefinable, it is dangerous. In fact, feminist might be improved served, Haraway bearing in mind “woman” to be a socially made group, deployed in a communications network, all along the position of “homosexual and “youth.”
In Hari Kunzru’s [2] article was try masculine partiality in scientific culture and sees herself as the troubled “modest witness” of the ethical maelstrom of hereditary engineering. She's too become a heroine to a production of women who are starting to call themselves cyberfeminists. Hari Kunzru’s support Haraway calls it “an ironic political myth.” It pulls off the not small deception of turning the cyborg from an image of Cold War power into a symbol of feminist liberation. Hari Kunzru’s analysis cyberfeminism is not an expression Haraway uses in combination through technology; it’s expected to construct your identity, your sexuality, even your gender. The cyberfeminists raise the roof in polymorphous perversity.
Luciano Duran’s [3] is explains Haraway essay “The Manifesto for Cyborgs”, a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a combination of technology and biology, a creature of both social actuality and fiction. Luciano Duran’s anaylsis the Cyborg feminists have to argue that any additional natural matrix of unity. In support of Haraway’s, Chela Sandoval states that, the cyborg skills necessary for patience under techno-human state of affairs. The feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological image of an oppositional consciousness and the illegal progeny of “patriarchal capitalism” that know how to be described as US Third World Feminism.
In this site [4], the author argue the traditions of “Western” science and politics, for examples, the tradition of racist, male-dominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as supply for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflect image of the other. And then, the relation between organism and machine has been a border war. The bets in the border war have been the countries of production, reproduction, and imagination.
Carolyn Keen’s [5] analysis Haraway essay are race, gender, and class are in the procedure of alteration. The tools for analysis: Marxist, psychoanalytic, feminist, anthropological. The cyborg evades traditional humanist concepts of women as childbearer and the heterosexual marriage-nuclear family, transcendentalism and Biblical narrative, fright of death, fright of automatism, persistence upon consistency and wholeness. It tries to create difficult binary oppositions, which have been “systemic to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of color, nature, workers, and animals.” Haraway argues socialist-feminist politics is all the way through theory and practice addressed to the social relations of science and technology. The relation between science and technology by feminists, which women need to be conscious of disparage. Haraway's analysis of “women in the integrated circuit” attempts to suggest, knowledge to organize these technologies, to “read these webs of power”. A socialist-feminist politics have to deal with these restructurings.
In this site [6], the author explains her article, "A Cyborg Manifesto", Haraway trys to create what she calls “an ironic political myth” which combines postmodernism with socialist feminism. Central to her myth is the icon of the cyborg, which is a cybernetic creature, a irritated of machine and a creature of social reality. In addition, the cyborg is a being in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, or other seductions to natural wholeness throughout a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a senior agreement. As the cyborg does not be as nature or culture, but is rather a mixture of more, it is not incomplete by traditional binarisms. The cyborg is as a kind of free self. The cyborg is polymorphous perversity. As a result, Haraway’s cyborg myth is “about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political work.” The myth put in prisons the “contradictory, partial and strategic” identities of the postmodern age. The cyborg myth has the possible for radical political develop as it frees feminists from a anxious explore for comparison with one another, as physical boundary breaks able to be extrapolated to political boundary crossings.
In conclusion, Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, she assigns her cyborg a female gender. She hints the cyborg is a figure that show “promise” for feminism, in part because it appears to her to be unfaithful to its militaristic origins. The different authors have dissimilar idea to the relationship of cyborg a female gender or not. In addition, the cyborg is may be creature in a gender or post-gender world; it has may be or no truck with bisexuality, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity. So, gender can be significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience.
References:
[1] Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto.’” (21 October 2001.) http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe/writing/manifesto.html
(accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[2] Kunzru, Hari. “You Are Cyborg.” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[3] Duran, Luciano. “Female Cyborg.” http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[4] “Cyborg” http://www.centenary.edu/etc/cyborg (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[5] Keen, Carolyn. “Carolyn Keen on Haraway, ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/keen2.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
[6] http://www.stumptuous.com/comps/cyborg.html (accessed on 22 March 2007.)
Sherry's work: Question 1
Question: In Haraway’s ‘Cyborg manifesto’, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what ways is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?
In my research I found 10 good articles to include in my webliography. My search process was quite simple: I started searching using the google.com search engine. Basically, I started by typing in keywords “Cyborg”, “Haraway”, “Gender”, “feminism”, and then “film” or “technology” to search for articles. I then focused on web-sites with “.edu”, or those that contained articles from students or were course introductions from universities.
In this paper, I will use the articles to show what a cyborg is, how it is a “site” of possibility and resistance. Then, I will then show how the representation of cyborg’s gender in film fails to make Haraway’s predictions come true. After this I look at a few articles about techno-science and cyborgs and show that even there, the cyborg is used to reinforce cultural gender bias. However, at the end, I find a few articles that show that is some ways techno-science; specifically man/machine partnerships actually realize some of Haraway’s suggestions about possibility.
In the article The Cyberfeminist fantasy of the Pleasure of the cyborg 1 the author, Yvonne Volkart, discusses Haraway’s figuration of cyborg as “an ageless naughty, unruled and nasty girl”. Volkart further pictures the Cyborg as a “polychromatic girl” who is “untamed”, “stubborn” and “unruly”; a cyborg that will not obey, will rebel and cannot be straightened out. This article is useful to clarify that Haraway actually gave her cyborg a gender. This is important as it is the starting point of the essay; why a female cyborg? [1]
At this point, I will use the following essays to show what a cyborg is, what sort of “possibility” it has and what that means to women in the real world.
Andrew Arsham’s article Power and Invisibility illustrates Haraway’s suggestion that technology/machines have become more and more dominant and, in contrast, human beings are losing their agency. Because of this, Haraway suggests that becoming cyborgs allows us to catch up and face with this changes/crisis. Specifically it is a “new way” to gain power. This article gives clear background information into the reason Haraway “created” a cyborg and how cyborgs can be used to make her theory real. [2]
Technics of Cyberfeminism: Strategic Sexualisations. Between Method and Fantasy by Yvonne Volkart is an important article in that it shows why Haraway gave her cyborg a gender. Haraway admits that her cyborg is a bad girl but never a “sensitive man”. Haraway suggests that gender is always a question in terms of the human mind. Gender is “not a thing of the past” but is in the present and the future. Volkart’s article shows that because gender is always the “master tools” that help us see the world, we are unable to see beyond gender. She states that Haraway uses a female cyborg to give “possibility” to women in the world. If her cyborg can go beyond the limitations of gender, then it is possible for women to do so as well. [3]
At this point, I will make a transition to an article that gives examples of early science fiction writing and its uses of cyborgs. This article is important because it shows that Haraway’s idea was also used by science fiction writers that the cyborg gave women the “possibility” of power was actually used by early writers.
Barbara Summerhawk’s article He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs gender in Post Modern Science Fiction shows the changes of female characters portrayed in Science-fiction 60’s and 70’s. Summerhawk sees that science fiction, began to challenge questions of identity, power relations and gender. She says that they made women characters that relied on traditional gender concepts but began to show some traditional masculine elements; they were physically strong, courage and intelligent. Summerhawk says that these early writers showed the possibility of different gender rules/roles and at the same time, questioned the nature of gender and social constructs. Summerhawk mentions that Donna Haraway showed that the old rules of “white, heterosexual male always the most dominated” are out of date. Haraway wanted new relationships between human being where everyone was equal; everyone carried temporary identities, everyone shared and created culture. But Summerhawk also suggests that there are dangerous possibilities: people see the cyborg as a masculine female figure/body which has the potential of fighting in a war or even taking over the world (political reality). [4]
At this point I will start a new section: The representation of cyborgs in popular culture. In this section I will use a few articles that look at films that use female cyborgs. These articles show that despite being powerful, these female cyborgs (sometimes called Artificial Intelligence or Replicant (hybrid of human and machine)) fail to live up to the potential Haraway suggests is part of cyborg. First it is important to give some background into the use of cyborgs in Hollywood movies.
Brianna Kleinschmidt’s article Hollywood’s Version of Artificial Intelligence: How Movies Portray Machine Learning and Its Capabilities and Carl Silvio’s article Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell talk about how cyborgs are extensions of the human imagination. What this means is that science-fiction films provide us with a “site” or “platform” to make “real” people’s imagination about Cyborgs. This imagination not only reflects the positive aspects but also the negative. The negative aspects include anxieties about contemporary technology. Silvio reminds us that many of the works (futurist film or science-fiction) succeeded in depicting the interaction between human and machine but fail to represent the feminist issues of gender and gender bias. [5] and [6]
After giving background information about the use of cyborgs in Hollywood films, I want to use two articles - one by JoAnna Thomsen and one by Uta Scheer - to explain how these female cyborgs fail in representing feminine/gender issues. In Cyberpunk Women of Neuromancer, The Matrix, and Blade Runner by JoAnna Thomsen and Uta Scheer’s Genered (Cy)Borgs: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics in Star Trek, the authors points out that a common representation of female cyborgs as sometime strong, independent and intelligent. However, they are often portrayed as a mere sex objects or as femme fatales with short-lives. Characters such as Rachel, Pris and Zhora in Blade Runner show how female cyborgs are strong and capable, but ultimately end up failing. Scheer’s article shows how another female cyborg (The Borg Queen in Star Trek) is also unable to live up to Haraway’s possibility. Scheer points out that the Borg Queen to a high degree portrays the traditional and stereotypical role of a female cyborg characters. Ultimately these films and television shows simply end up reinforcing and consolidating the typical gender stereotype with female subordination (female as sex object or femme fatale). [7] and [8]
As the articles above show, the possibility that Haraway gave to her female cyborg has been denied. Many popular culture media use a female cyborg but only do so as a means of reinforcing the traditional gender stereotypes. In the last section of my paper, I will look at several articles on Technoscience to see if the concept of cyborg helps make Haraway’s ideas of possibility come true.
In the article Final Question #1 by Julian Philips, the author looks a the pornography industry as a “site” of literal cyborgs. This article is valuable because it gives examples of “real” cyborgs, and not just “imaginary” cyborgs found in film and television. Unfortunately the pornographic film industry takes up the concept of a “sexual cyborg” where pornographic film stars, both male and female, use drugs to enhance their performance or surgery to exaggerate their physical attributes which only further reinforce sexual stereotypes. [9]
Finally, Paul Wolfe’s article A Synthesis of man and Machines: Defining the Cyborg of Today looks at another form of cyborg: the man/ machine partnership. Wolfe says that humans are becoming more like cyborgs and that cyborgs or machine are more saturated into our lives. These partnerships are actually beneficial and effective. This article shows that the techno-science (cyborg / machine) actually supports Haraway’s ideas of the cyborg as a possibility. Unfortunately, the role of these cyborgs is limited to military and medical uses so far. [10]
In conclusion, Donna Haraway gave her cyborg a gender (female) because she wanted that cyborg to be an image of possibility for women. Unfortunately, as is obvious from the articles, popular culture has only used the image of the cyborg to reinforce and consolidate the traditional gender roles. However, there is some hope: technoscience, using the cyborg concept of partnership, shows some signs of realizing Haraway’s possibility.
Reference:
[1] Volkart, Yvonne. The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg 1. No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.obn.org/reading_room/writings/html/cyberfem_fantasy.html>
[2] Arsham, Andrew. Power and Invisibility. No date. 23 Mar. 2007
<http://www.koni.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html.>
[3] Volkart, Yvonne. The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg 1. No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.obn.org/reading_room/writings/html/strategic_sex.html>
[4] Summerhawk, Barbara. He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs gender in Post Modern Science Fiction. July 1998. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://davidmswitzer.com/slonczewski/summerhawk.html>
[5] Kleinschmidt, Brianna. Hollywood’s Version of Artificial Intelligence: How Movies Portray Machine Learning and Its Capabilities No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/warner/english122tg/student.html>
[6] Silvio, Carl. Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell Mar. 1990 DePauw University 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/77/silvio77.htm.>
[7] Thomsen, JoAnna. Cyberpunk Women of Neuromancer, the Matrix, and Blade Runner Jun. 2000. 23 mar. 2007 <http://brmovie.com/Anaylsis/CyberGrrrlz.html>
[8] Scheer, Uta. Genered (Cy)Borgs: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics in Star Trek. Aug 2003 University of Goettingen. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/Visions/V1/s7a.htm.>
[9] Philips, Julian. Final Question #1. Dec, 2006. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://arguere.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html.>
[10] Wolfe, Paul. A Synthesis of man and Machines: Defining the Cyborg of Today No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/warner/english122tg/student.html#cyborgtech.>
In my research I found 10 good articles to include in my webliography. My search process was quite simple: I started searching using the google.com search engine. Basically, I started by typing in keywords “Cyborg”, “Haraway”, “Gender”, “feminism”, and then “film” or “technology” to search for articles. I then focused on web-sites with “.edu”, or those that contained articles from students or were course introductions from universities.
In this paper, I will use the articles to show what a cyborg is, how it is a “site” of possibility and resistance. Then, I will then show how the representation of cyborg’s gender in film fails to make Haraway’s predictions come true. After this I look at a few articles about techno-science and cyborgs and show that even there, the cyborg is used to reinforce cultural gender bias. However, at the end, I find a few articles that show that is some ways techno-science; specifically man/machine partnerships actually realize some of Haraway’s suggestions about possibility.
In the article The Cyberfeminist fantasy of the Pleasure of the cyborg 1 the author, Yvonne Volkart, discusses Haraway’s figuration of cyborg as “an ageless naughty, unruled and nasty girl”. Volkart further pictures the Cyborg as a “polychromatic girl” who is “untamed”, “stubborn” and “unruly”; a cyborg that will not obey, will rebel and cannot be straightened out. This article is useful to clarify that Haraway actually gave her cyborg a gender. This is important as it is the starting point of the essay; why a female cyborg? [1]
At this point, I will use the following essays to show what a cyborg is, what sort of “possibility” it has and what that means to women in the real world.
Andrew Arsham’s article Power and Invisibility illustrates Haraway’s suggestion that technology/machines have become more and more dominant and, in contrast, human beings are losing their agency. Because of this, Haraway suggests that becoming cyborgs allows us to catch up and face with this changes/crisis. Specifically it is a “new way” to gain power. This article gives clear background information into the reason Haraway “created” a cyborg and how cyborgs can be used to make her theory real. [2]
Technics of Cyberfeminism: Strategic Sexualisations. Between Method and Fantasy by Yvonne Volkart is an important article in that it shows why Haraway gave her cyborg a gender. Haraway admits that her cyborg is a bad girl but never a “sensitive man”. Haraway suggests that gender is always a question in terms of the human mind. Gender is “not a thing of the past” but is in the present and the future. Volkart’s article shows that because gender is always the “master tools” that help us see the world, we are unable to see beyond gender. She states that Haraway uses a female cyborg to give “possibility” to women in the world. If her cyborg can go beyond the limitations of gender, then it is possible for women to do so as well. [3]
At this point, I will make a transition to an article that gives examples of early science fiction writing and its uses of cyborgs. This article is important because it shows that Haraway’s idea was also used by science fiction writers that the cyborg gave women the “possibility” of power was actually used by early writers.
Barbara Summerhawk’s article He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs gender in Post Modern Science Fiction shows the changes of female characters portrayed in Science-fiction 60’s and 70’s. Summerhawk sees that science fiction, began to challenge questions of identity, power relations and gender. She says that they made women characters that relied on traditional gender concepts but began to show some traditional masculine elements; they were physically strong, courage and intelligent. Summerhawk says that these early writers showed the possibility of different gender rules/roles and at the same time, questioned the nature of gender and social constructs. Summerhawk mentions that Donna Haraway showed that the old rules of “white, heterosexual male always the most dominated” are out of date. Haraway wanted new relationships between human being where everyone was equal; everyone carried temporary identities, everyone shared and created culture. But Summerhawk also suggests that there are dangerous possibilities: people see the cyborg as a masculine female figure/body which has the potential of fighting in a war or even taking over the world (political reality). [4]
At this point I will start a new section: The representation of cyborgs in popular culture. In this section I will use a few articles that look at films that use female cyborgs. These articles show that despite being powerful, these female cyborgs (sometimes called Artificial Intelligence or Replicant (hybrid of human and machine)) fail to live up to the potential Haraway suggests is part of cyborg. First it is important to give some background into the use of cyborgs in Hollywood movies.
Brianna Kleinschmidt’s article Hollywood’s Version of Artificial Intelligence: How Movies Portray Machine Learning and Its Capabilities and Carl Silvio’s article Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell talk about how cyborgs are extensions of the human imagination. What this means is that science-fiction films provide us with a “site” or “platform” to make “real” people’s imagination about Cyborgs. This imagination not only reflects the positive aspects but also the negative. The negative aspects include anxieties about contemporary technology. Silvio reminds us that many of the works (futurist film or science-fiction) succeeded in depicting the interaction between human and machine but fail to represent the feminist issues of gender and gender bias. [5] and [6]
After giving background information about the use of cyborgs in Hollywood films, I want to use two articles - one by JoAnna Thomsen and one by Uta Scheer - to explain how these female cyborgs fail in representing feminine/gender issues. In Cyberpunk Women of Neuromancer, The Matrix, and Blade Runner by JoAnna Thomsen and Uta Scheer’s Genered (Cy)Borgs: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics in Star Trek, the authors points out that a common representation of female cyborgs as sometime strong, independent and intelligent. However, they are often portrayed as a mere sex objects or as femme fatales with short-lives. Characters such as Rachel, Pris and Zhora in Blade Runner show how female cyborgs are strong and capable, but ultimately end up failing. Scheer’s article shows how another female cyborg (The Borg Queen in Star Trek) is also unable to live up to Haraway’s possibility. Scheer points out that the Borg Queen to a high degree portrays the traditional and stereotypical role of a female cyborg characters. Ultimately these films and television shows simply end up reinforcing and consolidating the typical gender stereotype with female subordination (female as sex object or femme fatale). [7] and [8]
As the articles above show, the possibility that Haraway gave to her female cyborg has been denied. Many popular culture media use a female cyborg but only do so as a means of reinforcing the traditional gender stereotypes. In the last section of my paper, I will look at several articles on Technoscience to see if the concept of cyborg helps make Haraway’s ideas of possibility come true.
In the article Final Question #1 by Julian Philips, the author looks a the pornography industry as a “site” of literal cyborgs. This article is valuable because it gives examples of “real” cyborgs, and not just “imaginary” cyborgs found in film and television. Unfortunately the pornographic film industry takes up the concept of a “sexual cyborg” where pornographic film stars, both male and female, use drugs to enhance their performance or surgery to exaggerate their physical attributes which only further reinforce sexual stereotypes. [9]
Finally, Paul Wolfe’s article A Synthesis of man and Machines: Defining the Cyborg of Today looks at another form of cyborg: the man/ machine partnership. Wolfe says that humans are becoming more like cyborgs and that cyborgs or machine are more saturated into our lives. These partnerships are actually beneficial and effective. This article shows that the techno-science (cyborg / machine) actually supports Haraway’s ideas of the cyborg as a possibility. Unfortunately, the role of these cyborgs is limited to military and medical uses so far. [10]
In conclusion, Donna Haraway gave her cyborg a gender (female) because she wanted that cyborg to be an image of possibility for women. Unfortunately, as is obvious from the articles, popular culture has only used the image of the cyborg to reinforce and consolidate the traditional gender roles. However, there is some hope: technoscience, using the cyborg concept of partnership, shows some signs of realizing Haraway’s possibility.
Reference:
[1] Volkart, Yvonne. The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg 1. No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.obn.org/reading_room/writings/html/cyberfem_fantasy.html>
[2] Arsham, Andrew. Power and Invisibility. No date. 23 Mar. 2007
<http://www.koni.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html.>
[3] Volkart, Yvonne. The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg 1. No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.obn.org/reading_room/writings/html/strategic_sex.html>
[4] Summerhawk, Barbara. He, She or It: The Cyborg De-Constructs gender in Post Modern Science Fiction. July 1998. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://davidmswitzer.com/slonczewski/summerhawk.html>
[5] Kleinschmidt, Brianna. Hollywood’s Version of Artificial Intelligence: How Movies Portray Machine Learning and Its Capabilities No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/warner/english122tg/student.html>
[6] Silvio, Carl. Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell Mar. 1990 DePauw University 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/77/silvio77.htm.>
[7] Thomsen, JoAnna. Cyberpunk Women of Neuromancer, the Matrix, and Blade Runner Jun. 2000. 23 mar. 2007 <http://brmovie.com/Anaylsis/CyberGrrrlz.html>
[8] Scheer, Uta. Genered (Cy)Borgs: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics in Star Trek. Aug 2003 University of Goettingen. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/Visions/V1/s7a.htm.>
[9] Philips, Julian. Final Question #1. Dec, 2006. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://arguere.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html.>
[10] Wolfe, Paul. A Synthesis of man and Machines: Defining the Cyborg of Today No date. 23 Mar. 2007 <http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/warner/english122tg/student.html#cyborgtech.>
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