INTRODUCING
DONNA HARAWAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS THE BASICS 4-5 TERMS TO KNOW 6-7 INFLUENCES, CONTEMPORARIES AND FOLLOWERS
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CYBORG CONTRIBUTIONS 11-12 WORK CITED 13
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published works Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology, 1976. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, 1985. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspectives”, in Feminist Studies, pp. 575–599, 1988. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, Routledge: New York and London, 1989. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, and London: Free Association Books, 1991 (includes “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”). Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience, New York: Routledge, 1997 (winner of the Ludwig Fleck Prize). How Like a Leaf: A Conversation with Donna J. Haraway, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve, Routledge, 1999. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003. When Species Meet, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
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BIOGRAPHY Born on September 6, 1944 in Denver, Colorado.
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She has taught at the University Credit to GettyImages of Hawaii, John Hopkins University and European Graduate School in Switzerland. Her impressive background in Women’s studies, History of Science, feminist theory, and techno-science. “People like me Haraway, a History of Consciousness became national Department professor of the Universityresources in the of California, Santa Cruz, United national science States. Her focus on the semiotic relationship humans share with efforts. So, there was technology instigated much debate in money available for vast subjects, such as primatology, philosophy, and developmental biology. educating even Irish Haraway’s intellect has crossed Catholic girls’ brains.” intellectual boundaries and geographic Donna Haraway borders while creating the cyberfeminist genre. As a young scholar, at the Colorado College, she explored diverse subjects zoology, philosophy and English. Haraway attended the University of Paris, where she studied Chelsea Walsh 4
philosophies of evolution. Her Ph.D. from the Yale’s Department of Biology could not satiate her educational desires. She taught Women’s studies at the University of Hawaii between 1971 and 1974, and traveled back to the states, teaching in the Department of History of Science at Johns from 1974 and 1980. After a brief hiatus, Haraway began teaching in the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and teaches there until this day.
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Far left and right: Donna Haraway herself. Top left: A St.John’s University crest where Haraway has taught. Above: Yale University where Haraway received her PhD. Lower left: Feminism Rally inspired by Haraway’s writings.
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dr. fox effect
terms to know Kayla Edgar 6
e posthumanism postmodernism cyborg t technoscience pos obscuran democrati
techno-progressivism postgenderism
a social and political movement that combines the ideologies of feminism and environmentalism
stresses identity rather than affinity; the cyborg moves beyond traditional views of gender, politics, and feminism
the voluntary elimination of gender through biotechnology and assistive reproductive technologies
ecofeminism m m generator heory e stmodernism ntism ic transhumanism
refers to the transhumanists who utilize liberal and social democratic views for the development of human enhancement technologies
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INFLUENCES AND CONTEMPORARIES Monique Wittig Luce Irigaray Gloria Anzaldúa June Jordan Katie King Sandra Harding Chela Sandoval Lady Gaga Janelle Monae Christina Aguilera Donna Haraway was influenced by the French Writers Monique Wittig and Luce Irigaray. These writers “exhorted women to reject masculinist Credit to GettyImages histories” and instead “write the truth of their bodies” through methods like autobiography and performance.” (Senft) This practice, which they called “feminine writing”, influenced a generation of feminists. Haraway applies some of Wittig’s ideas about women’s bodies when she says “Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?” in her essay “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, “I’m an alien from Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in outer space, I’m a the Late Twentieth Century”.“Haraway cyborg girl without stresses the importance of literacy work to contemporary liberation a face, a heart or a struggles—especially the recent work mind.” ‘Many Moons’, Janelle Monae of Gloria Anzaldua, June Jordan, and Katie King.” (Haraway) Sandra Harding is a philosopher of feminist theory. Like Harding, Haraway argues that in fact there are contesting narratives produced by those who have been excluded from the knowledge-making projects of techno science: “There are many actors in our world who can and ought to have a say in the design of the apparatus for the production of scientific knowledge.” (Haraway) Michelle Collins 8
Pop artists Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera, and Janelle Monae are incorporating Haraway’s ideals into their own lives and public image. These contemporary women are playing off of the robotic women idea and incorporating these factors into their outfits and music videos. Janelle Monae’s power as a songwriter is proof of Haraway’s assertion that “cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other”. Haraway has discussed the construction of women in science fiction, and Monae’s adoption of the persona “Cindy Mayweather” as a rebellious figure who defies authority in a dystopian future is a worthy addition to the discourse about ‘women of colour’ as a political, postmodern identity. (Haraway)
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Top left: Lady Gaga portaying a robot. Above: Janelle Monae appears as cyborg persona Cindy Mayweather on the cover of her EP “Metropolis”. Lower left: The cyborg-like cover of Christina Aguilera’s latest album “Bionic”.
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FOLLOWERS Transhumanists Feminists
Now, 25 years later, “A Cyborg Manifesto” can be seen as the inspiration for the emergence of cyborgology and cyberfeminism, sub-disciplines made up of culture critics who used the cyborg metaphor and the postmodernist questions Haraway posed to explore the woman-machine interface. It also brought transhumanists into the discussion, who integrated and re-interpreted Haraway’s ideas, resulting in the emergence of postgenderist theory—the suggestion that both females and males should look to be liberated from gendered constraints through the application of advanced biotechnologies. (Dvorsky)
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Above: Philosopher of feminst theory, Sandra Harding. Upper right: French feminist writer Luce Irigaray. Lower right: Contemporary writer June Jordan. Michelle Collins 10
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MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS Donna Haraway contributions to rhetoric are revolutionary. Haraway ‘s concepts of the woman challenge the Western world’s ideologies that have been put in place as guidelines for both men and woman to abide by. In her now famous theory “The Cyborg Manifesto” she manages to merge both science and the social roles of humans by equating them to cyborgs, or machines of what were once humans created to dole out task that stay within the confines of the laws of nature. “The Cyborg Manifesto” is a theory that is similar to Karl Marx Communist Manifesto that focuses on the idea that homosapiens are no longer human, but in fact a mixture Credit to GettyImages of human and machine therefore creating the “Cyborg”. In her writings, Haraway focuses on how women need to break away from the Western ideologies that consume their beliefs of what is characterized as feminine. Western ideologies that were founded upon Christian beliefs and the idea’s that woman should remain in the role of submission and inferiority. Through her theory she encourages her audience which is primarily geared towards woman to look beyond the guidelines that males have permitted for the role of a woman. She does this by stating that women should go beyond “Naturalism” or what is deemed the laws of nature; as well as going beyond “Essentialism” “By the late twentieth that may prevent a woman from reaching her full potential because she century, our time, a has already been placed in society. mythic time, we are The main goal of Haraways manifesto all chimeras, theorized is to encourage woman to become more than wives and mothers and and fabricated hybrids not have the rules of society place of machine and limitations upon them. Haraway’s organism; in short, we manifesto also focuses on how the idea that the women in the Western are cyborgs.” Donna Haraway world are no longer viewed has as
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human, but just bodies. This image of the woman’s body is no longer human but constructed only as a sexual image used to attract the opposite sex. There is also the idea of the “perfect body” of a woman that she focuses on in her theory. Donna Haraway’s influence is felt within many different realms ranging from woman’s studies to Modern Rhetoric. Haraways contribution of the Cyborg Theory not only plays a pivotal role in the study of feminism, but has also impacted the perception of women in rhetoric as well. Her publications on female socialism and the Cyborg theory have allowed rhetoricians to construct new ideas on how women are viewed and interpreted in a world dominated by males.
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Left: A digital version of a women robot. Upper right: A robotic rendition of supermodel Kate Moss. Lower right: Donna Haraway lecturing about cybergs.
works cited A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s. Socialist Review 15, no. 2 (1985). Curtin, Maureen F. Out of Touch: Skin Tropes and Identites in Woolf, Ellison, Pynchon, and Acker. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print. Dvorsky, George. “Overcoming Gender.” Sentient Developments: science, futurism, life. N.p., 06 01 2008. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. Dvorsky, George. Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary. Sentient Developments. 20 Mar. 2008. Web. 24 Mar. 2012. Haraway, Donna. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Print. Haraway, Donna. Writing, Literacy and Technology: Toward a Cyborg Writing Interview by Gary A. Olson. 2007. Print. <http://lilt.ilstu.edu/theory/authors/haraway.htm>. Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Free Association Books, 1990 Hughes, James. Politics of Transhumanism. Mar. 2002 Web. 24 Mar. 2012. “Donna Haraway - Biography.” The European Graduate School. European Graduate School EGS, n.d. Web. 27 Mar 2012. <http://www.egs.edu/faculty/donna-haraway/biography/>. Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto.’” What is Ecofeminism Anyway? The Feminist eZine. Web. 24 Mar. 2012.
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