Tag: Theory Article Summaries

✦ Haraway’s Cyborg as Political Myth

• Campbell argues that Haraway frames the cyborg as an “ironic political myth” faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism, but also as blasphemy within U.S. civil religion traditions (Haraway, 1985:65; Campbell, 2001, p. 156).
• Myth here functions as a legitimating narrative—a worldview that provides coherence and authority (Campbell, 2001, pp. 156–157).

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✦ Blasphemy vs. Apostasy

• Haraway adopts the stance of the blasphemer (insider critic), not the apostate (outsider), to challenge dominant religious-political traditions while still working within them (Campbell, 2001, pp. 157–158).
• This position acknowledges the pervasive American civil religion that merges Christianity with national identity (Campbell, 2001, p. 158).

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✦ Irony as Strategy and Its Limits

• Haraway employs irony as “humor and serious play”, but Campbell critiques this as rhetorical ambiguity that risks misinterpretation and undermines her critique (Haraway, 1985:65; Campbell, 2001, pp. 158–159).
• Instead of subverting technological civil religion, her irony may inadvertently affirm it (Campbell, 2001, p. 159).

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✦ Technology as Civil Religion

• Campbell, drawing on Wuthnow, argues that technology has replaced older legitimating myths in American civil religion, offering tangible “this-worldly” salvation (Wuthnow, 1988:282–291; Campbell, 2001, pp. 160–161).
• Haraway’s work, despite its critique, affirms this myth by grounding salvation in technoscientific progress (Campbell, 2001, pp. 161–162).

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✦ Breakdown of Western Dualisms

• Haraway’s cyborg challenges three key dualisms:
  1. Human/Animal – rejecting human exceptionalism (Haraway, 1985:68).
  2. Organism/Machine – merging biology and technology (Haraway, 1985:99).
  3. Physical/Non-physical – integrating spirituality with technoscience (Haraway, 1985:70; Campbell, 2001, pp. 162–164).
• Campbell argues these dissolutions lead to a holistic “cyborg salvation history” (p. 164).

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✦ Cyborg as Carrier of Salvation History

• The cyborg is not outside history but becomes the “carrier” of salvation history, embodying humanity’s hopes through technology (Campbell, 2001, p. 164).
• Unlike Christian salvation rooted in divine grace, Haraway’s is a technological soteriology—salvation through technoscience (Campbell, 2001, pp. 164–165).

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✦ Haraway’s Religious Language

• Haraway borrows heavily from religious tropes such as witnessing, blasphemy, and salvation (Haraway, 1997:47, 120; Campbell, 2001, pp. 164–166).
• Campbell notes parallels to biblical narratives (e.g., Babel, Pentecost) in her use of “speaking in tongues” (Haraway, 1985:101; Campbell, 2001, p. 165).

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✦ Cyborg Myth as Techno-Optimism

• Campbell critiques Haraway for reinforcing a techno-celebratory worldview, where technology itself becomes the site of redemption (Campbell, 2001, pp. 166–168).
• Scholars such as Hochman and Stahl similarly argue that Haraway’s utopian vision downplays the environmental and capitalist costs of technology (Campbell, 2001, pp. 168–169).

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✦ Future of Religion: Techno-Mysticism

• The cyborg embodies a fusion of science and religion, creating a technological mysticism or implicit religion of technology (Stahl, 1999:13; Campbell, 2001, pp. 167–169).
• Salvation is redefined as becoming light, energy, and signals—a new civil religion of technoscience (Haraway, 1985:70; Campbell, 2001, p. 169).

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✦ Final Claim: No Postmodern Reality

• Campbell concludes that Haraway’s work, despite its postmodern rhetoric, offers no real rupture—“the stark reality about postmodern reality is that there is no such thing” (Campbell, 2001, p. 169).

✦ Poststructuralism & Deconstruction

• Campbell situates Haraway’s manifesto within the feminist post-structuralist critique of science, noting her challenge to universal, totalizing theories (Crewe, 1997; Campbell, 2001, p. 155).
• By highlighting Haraway’s use of irony and myth, Campbell demonstrates how rhetorical strategies deconstruct binaries and destabilize meaning, yet paradoxically risk reinforcing dominant ideologies (Campbell, 2001, pp. 158–159).
• This reflects a poststructuralist concern with language, ambiguity, and the limits of representation.

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✶ Feminist Literary Theory

• Haraway’s cyborg is read as a feminist icon challenging gender essentialism and the myth of human exceptionalism (Haraway, 1985:68; Campbell, 2001, pp. 162–163).
• Campbell critiques how Haraway frames the cyborg as both emancipatory and as complicit with techno-optimism, exposing tensions within feminist theory between critique and complicity (Campbell, 2001, p. 166).
• Contribution: highlights how feminist theory can be both critical and vulnerable to ideological capture by dominant technoscientific narratives.

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❂ Myth Criticism & Religious Studies in Literature

• Campbell interprets Haraway’s “cyborg” as a legitimating myth akin to religious salvation history (Campbell, 2001, p. 156).
• He frames her rhetoric of blasphemy, witnessing, and salvation as continuations of biblical/mythic patterns transposed into technoscience (Campbell, 2001, pp. 157–165).
• Contribution: situates literary/mythic tropes as crucial in understanding how technoscience inherits theological functions.

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⚙︎ Cultural Studies & Civil Religion

• Campbell argues Haraway’s work legitimates the civil religion of technology in U.S. culture, transforming salvation into a technoscientific project (Campbell, 2001, pp. 154–160).
• By reading Haraway alongside Wuthnow and Stahl, Campbell places the cyborg within cultural narratives of progress and national destiny (Campbell, 2001, pp. 160–169).
• Contribution: expands cultural studies by showing how literature and theory participate in national mythmaking through religious-technological metaphors.

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☍ Science, Technology, and Literature (STS & Technocriticism)

• Campbell underscores how Haraway collapses the boundaries between human/animal, organism/machine, and physical/non-physical (Campbell, 2001, pp. 162–164).
• He critiques her cyborg as embodying a technological mysticism, reinforcing rather than dismantling technoscientific authority (Campbell, 2001, pp. 167–169).
• Contribution: advances technocriticism in literary studies by framing literature and theory as implicated in the cultural legitimation of science and technology.

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✥ Utopian/Dystopian Literary Theory

• Haraway’s cyborg offers a utopian vision of a post-gender, post-dualist world (Campbell, 2001, pp. 162–163).
• Campbell critiques this as “techno-celebratory” and insufficiently attentive to environmental and capitalist costs (Campbell, 2001, pp. 166–168).
• Contribution: complicates utopian studies by showing how utopian tropes can legitimize existing technological orders instead of disrupting them.

🌐 Overview & Aim

• Verbeek expands Don Ihde’s phenomenology to analyze how intentionality operates in human–technology relations, coining “cyborg intentionality.” He aims “to augment Don Ihde’s analysis” and examine cases “at the limits of Ihde’s analysis.” (Verbeek, 2008)
• Core claim: intentionality—long treated as exclusively human—must be reconceptualized to include mediated, hybrid, and composite forms that blend human and technological agency. (Verbeek, 2008)

🧭 Intentionality in Phenomenology

• In the phenomenological tradition, intentionality reveals our inextricable directedness toward the world: we never simply think or see, but always think/see something. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Verbeek emphasizes that “the ‘world in itself’ is inaccessible,” becoming a “world for us” through our modes of encounter—now deeply technological. (Verbeek, 2008)

🔧 Mediated Intentionality (Ihde’s Four Relations)

• Technologies shape and channel experience: glasses (embodiment), ATMs (alterity), thermometers (hermeneutic), air conditioners (background). (Verbeek, 2008)
• Key insight: in all but alterity, “human intentionality is mediated by a technological device,” so experiences like “reading off a thermometer” involve “cyborg intentionality.” (Verbeek, 2008)
• Quote: technologies “help to shape a specific relation between humans and world.” (Verbeek, 2008)

🧬 Hybrid Intentionality (Beyond Embodiment)

• Adds a fifth relation: cyborg relation — (human/technology) → world, where human and artifact merge (e.g., implants, pacemakers, psychoactive drugs) to form a new experiencing entity. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Distinction: unlike embodiment (where shares can be teased apart), in hybrids “there actually is no association…anymore. Rather, a new entity comes about.” (Verbeek, 2008)
• Theoretical stakes: clarifies posthumanist (co-constitution) vs transhumanist (physical fusion) trajectories and their ethical implications (e.g., Sloterdijk’s “anthropotechnologies”). (Verbeek, 2008)

🧩 Composite Intentionality (Double Directedness)

• Technologies possess specific directedness (their own “intentionality”), which, added to human intentionality, yields a composite form: human → (technology → world). (Verbeek, 2008)
• Example (via Ihde): a recorder “has a different intentionality for sound,” amplifying background noise that humans ignore—showing nonhuman selectivity. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Quote: composite intentionality “results from adding technological intentionality and human intentionality.” (Verbeek, 2008)

🧱 Augmenting Ihde: Opening the “Dashes” into Arrows

• Verbeek argues Ihde’s diagrams black-box two links:
  • the human–technology bond in embodiment, and
  • the technology–world bond in hermeneutics.
• By replacing the dash with an arrow (technology → world), Verbeek reveals nonhuman intentionality and the double intentionality of hermeneutic relations. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Quote: “Drawing attention to these intentionalities makes it possible to substantially augment his analysis.” (Verbeek, 2008)

🎨 Artistic Probes of Composite Intentionality

• Augmented intentionality: Wouter Hooijmans’s long-exposure night photography uses starlight and “sustained exposures” to render what “only things that last” reveal—an artificially expanded human vision. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Constructive intentionality: De Realisten’s stereophotography constructs three-dimensional amalgams with no everyday counterpart; technological vision here generates reality rather than representing it. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Quote: these works “aim to reveal a reality that can only be experienced by technologies.” (Verbeek, 2008)

🧠 Posthuman Condition & Stakes

• Verbeek aligns with thinkers (Haraway, Stiegler, Latour) in claiming we have “become such entities” where technology is constitutive of humanity (e.g., writing transforming cultural interpretation). (Verbeek, 2008)
• Ethical and metaphysical implication: re-articulating intentionality helps us understand “the ‘posthuman’ or perhaps even ‘transhuman’ beings we are becoming”—and the limits of humanity. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Quote: “Intentionality… needs to be extended to the realm of technology – and to the realm of human–technology amalgams.” (Verbeek, 2008)

📚 Significance for Literary/Critical Theory

• For literary/posthumanist theory, Verbeek reframes the cyborg not merely as metaphor but as phenomenological structure that co-constitutes perception, agency, and meaning-making—opening new readings of mediation, embodiment, and authorship. (Verbeek, 2008)
• Bridges Haraway’s cyborg politics and Hayles’s posthuman embodiment by specifying how technologies mediate, merge, and co-direct intentionality—grounding cultural analysis in phenomenological micro-structures of technicity. (Verbeek, 2008)

🌐 Posthumanism & Cyborg Theory

• Verbeek builds on Donna Haraway’s cyborg manifesto, extending it phenomenologically by showing that the cyborg is not only a cultural metaphor but a lived ontological condition of human–technology relations (Haraway, 1991; Verbeek, 2008, p. 388).
• Contribution to literary theory: Offers a phenomenological grounding for posthumanist literary readings where subjectivity is hybrid, distributed, and co-constituted with technologies.
• Example: In literary criticism, this allows for reading narratives of embodiment, prosthesis, and digital culture as reflecting cyborg intentionality rather than merely symbolic cyborg identity.

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🧭 Phenomenology & Postphenomenology

• Verbeek reworks phenomenology of intentionality (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty) by arguing that intentionality is always mediated, hybridized, or composite in technological cultures (Verbeek, 2008, pp. 389–392).
• Contribution to literary theory: Expands phenomenological approaches to literature (reader-response, phenomenology of perception in narrative) by showing that reading itself can be seen as technologically mediated intentionality (e.g., through writing systems, digital texts).
• Theorists like Don Ihde are repositioned in literary studies as tools for analyzing media and textuality beyond humanist subjectivity.

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📚 Posthumanist Literary Theory (Hayles)

• Verbeek echoes N. Katherine Hayles’s thesis in How We Became Posthuman that human subjectivity is inseparable from informational and technological frameworks (Hayles, 1999; Verbeek, 2008, p. 388).
• Contribution: Strengthens media theory and literary posthumanism by giving a phenomenological account of how technologies co-constitute human perception and meaning-making.
• In literary analysis, this can enrich readings of science fiction, digital literature, and techno-cultural texts by grounding them in embodied technological phenomenology rather than abstraction.

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🧩 Actor–Network Theory & Material Agency

• Verbeek aligns with Latour’s claim that nonhumans have agency by articulating technological intentionality (Latour, 1993; Verbeek, 2008, p. 392).
• Contribution: Bridges ANT with literary theory by enabling readings where objects and technologies in texts are not passive symbols but active mediators of meaning.
• This shift supports materialist literary criticism: novels, poems, and plays can be read as networks of human and nonhuman actants, redistributing agency in narrative analysis.

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🧬 Transhumanism & Speculative Literature

• Verbeek distinguishes between posthumanist co-constitution and transhumanist physical fusion (Bostrom, 2004; Verbeek, 2008, pp. 390–391).
• Contribution: Gives literary theory a nuanced vocabulary to analyze speculative fiction and utopian/dystopian narratives about human enhancement, AI, and bionics.
• For transhumanist literature, hybrid intentionality provides a way to see fictional cyborgs not only as symbols but as experiencing entities with distinct intentionalities.

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🎨 Aesthetics, Representation, and Mediation

• Verbeek’s examples of augmented and constructive intentionality in art (Hooijmans’s photography, De Realisten’s stereography) show that technologies construct realities and expand perception (Verbeek, 2008, pp. 393–394).
• Contribution: Extends aesthetic theory in literature by providing a framework for analyzing representation and mediation not as transparent but as technologically co-produced.
• In literary studies, this helps analyze how texts mediate alternative realities, much like technologies mediate perception.

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🧵 Co-Constitution & Literary Subjectivity

• Verbeek emphasizes that “technologies used… help to constitute us as different human beings” (Verbeek, 2008, p. 391).
• Contribution: Influences literary subjectivity theory by showing how characters, narrators, and readers can be analyzed as co-constituted with technologies, shifting away from humanist autonomy.
• Example: In narrative theory, characters who use prosthetics, digital devices, or writing systems can be seen as cyborg subjects whose intentionality is distributed.

⚖️ Overextension of Intentionality

• Critics may argue Verbeek stretches the concept of intentionality too far by attributing it to technologies. Traditional phenomenology sees intentionality as exclusively human consciousness, and extending it to artifacts risks conceptual dilution (Verbeek, 2008, p. 392).

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🔧 Technology as Neutral Tool vs. Agent

• Some would contend that Verbeek overstates technological agency. While he emphasizes technological intentionality, critics may argue that technologies only reflect human design choices, not autonomous intentionality.

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🌀 Blurring Posthumanism and Transhumanism

• By integrating both posthumanist co-constitution and transhumanist fusion, Verbeek risks conceptual ambiguity. His dual framing may be seen as collapsing critical distinctions that literary/cultural theorists like Haraway or Bostrom keep separate (Verbeek, 2008, pp. 390–391).

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📚 Limited Engagement with Literary/Cultural Discourse

• Although Verbeek references Haraway, Hayles, Latour, Stiegler, his article is largely philosophical-phenomenological, not literary or cultural. Critics might see this as a missed opportunity to more deeply engage with cyborg narratives and cultural texts.

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🔍 Reduction of Power and Politics

• Verbeek’s focus is phenomenological rather than political. Critics may argue his framework underplays issues of power, ideology, and inequality embedded in technological systems—central concerns for posthumanist and critical theory (e.g., feminist, postcolonial critiques).

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🧩 Ambiguity in “Composite Intentionality”

• The idea of composite intentionality (human → [technology → world]) could be criticized as philosophically vague. Is it metaphorical, or does it imply literal technological “experience”? Skeptics may argue that Verbeek conflates functional directedness with genuine intentionality (Verbeek, 2008, p. 392).

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🧭 Dependence on Ihde’s Framework

• Verbeek’s contribution builds on Don Ihde’s four human–technology relations, but some may argue his work is too dependent on Ihde, offering refinements rather than a truly radical rethinking.

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🧬 Ethical Blind Spots

• While Verbeek references Sloterdijk’s “anthropotechnologies,” critics could argue his approach does not fully address ethical risks of hybrid/transhuman intentionalities, leaving unanswered questions about responsibility, governance, and moral limits.

✦ Introduction and Context

• The essay was first presented at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco and later published as an occasional essay (Downey, Dumit, & Williams, 1992, p. 1).
• It positions cyborg anthropology as a “descriptive label that marks a cultural project rather than an elite academic practice” (p. 1).
• The authors stress that it is “not just for anthropologists or other professional intellectuals” but a tool to provoke wider cultural discussion (p. 1).

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⚙️ Cyborg Anthropology as Theorizing and Participation

• Defined both as a mode of theorizing and a participatory practice in society.
• It examines “the relations among knowledge production, technological production, and subject production” (p. 1).
• The cyborg image, while originating in science fiction, is used to “call attention more generally to the cultural production of human distinctiveness” (p. 1).
• Encourages anthropologists to be “culturally reflexive” about their role in science and technology (p. 1).

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📚 Connections with Cultural Studies

• Cyborg anthropology “articulates in productive and insightful ways with cultural studies” (p. 1).
• Inspired by British cultural studies (Birmingham School) in critiquing institutional production of subjectivity, race, and class (p. 1).
• Draws from American cultural studies, which linked knowledge and power to resist conservative politics in the 1980s (p. 1).
• Like cultural studies, it stresses that “academic theorizing always has political dimensions” (p. 1).

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🔬 Three Areas of Study and Critique

1. Science and Technology as Culture

• Anthropology has historically excluded science and technology from ethnographic critique.
• Cyborg anthropology instead treats them as “cultural phenomena whose histories, functions, and representations cross boundaries” (p. 2).
• It asserts that “we are all scientists”, reconstructing and interpreting science in everyday contexts (p. 2).

2. Rethinking “Anthropos”

• Challenges the human-centered foundations of anthropology.
• The term itself is an oxymoron, drawing attention to assumptions of “man” as anthropology’s central subject.
• Argues that subjectivity is co-produced: “human subjects and subjectivity are crucially as much a function of machines…as they are machine producers and operators” (p. 2).
• Notes the “notable silence in ethnographic writing” regarding how technologies define anthropological practice (p. 2).

3. New Ethnographic Field Sites

• Expands fieldwork to include the ways machines participate in shaping subjectivities.
• Technologies—from computers to spoons—help organize identities, desires, and social differences (p. 2).
• Calls attention to how machines adjudicate boundaries of knowledge, power, and social life.

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♀️ Feminist and Posthumanist Influences

• Feminist studies are central to cyborg anthropology.
• By problematizing the body and gender, they show “who and what is reproduced (and by what sorts of technologies)” (p. 2).
• Analyses of reproductive technologies reveal “unexpected relationships between women and technology” (p. 2).
• Poststructuralist and posthumanist critiques also inform the rejection of autonomous, humanist subjectivity.

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⚡ Dangers and Challenges

• Cyborg anthropology is a “dangerous activity” because it blurs human/machine boundaries and embeds anthropology within structures of power (p. 2).
• Danger arises from co-optation—the risk of losing critical edge by accepting scientific presuppositions.
• To remain critical, it must remain “accountable to both academic theorizing and popular theorizing” (p. 2).
• Emphasizes both the “dangers of studying up” (critiquing power) and the “pleasures of studying down” (engaging popular practices) (p. 2).

·  🌐 Blurring Boundaries of Text and Subject

• Reference: p. 267 — “A crucial first step in blurring the human-centered boundaries of anthropological discourse…”
• Contribution: Challenges the traditional humanist subject in literary theory, encouraging readings where humans, machines, and texts co-produce meaning.

·  🧩 Critique of Humanist Subjectivity

• Reference: p. 266 — “The term ‘cyborg anthropology’…draws attention to the human-centered presuppositions of anthropological discourse…”
• Contribution: Anticipates posthuman literary theories by decentering the “individual author” or autonomous subject as the sole meaning-maker.

·  🔄 Metaphors as Theoretical Tools

• Reference: p. 265 — “Cyborg anthropology invests in alternative world-making by critically examining the powers of the imagination…”
• Contribution: Validates the literary use of metaphors (cyborg, hybridity, actant) as critical tools for theorizing cultural and textual production.

·  ♀️⚙️ Feminist Literary Critique and Technoscience

• Reference: p. 268 — “The cyborg anthropology we outline would not be imaginable without the work of feminist studies…”
• Contribution: Extends feminist literary theory by analyzing how gender, technology, and textual reproduction intersect.

·  🤖 Technologies as Texts

• Reference: p. 266–267 — “Human subjects and subjectivity are crucially as much a function of machines…”
• Contribution: Positions machines and technologies themselves as “texts” to be read, interpreted, and critiqued within literary frameworks.

·  🪞 Reflexivity and Critique of Objectivity

• Reference: p. 269 — “Cyborg anthropology might participate in continued critical translations of ‘objectivity’ and ‘community’…”
• Contribution: Resonates with deconstruction and poststructuralist literary theory by destabilizing notions of objective meaning.

·  🎭 Multiplicity of Subject Positions

• Reference: p. 267 — “It is increasingly clear that…we are in the midst of constructing new, multiple, and partial subjectivities.”
• Contribution: Influences narrative and identity theories by showing subjectivity as fragmented, hybrid, and co-produced — key in postmodern literary analysis.

·  ⚡ Critique of Power in Knowledge Production

• Reference: p. 265 — “It looks for ways to critique, resist, and participate within structures of knowledge and power.”
• Contribution: Aligns with cultural studies and Marxist literary criticism by foregrounding how power circulates in texts and knowledge systems.

·  🔬 Ethnography of Science as Textual Practice

• Reference: p. 266 — “Studying science becomes both more amenable to ethnographic investigation and more important as a topic of research.”
• Contribution: Suggests that scientific discourse can be treated as literature, subject to narrative analysis, tropes, and symbolic structures.

·  ⚠️ Danger and Resistance as Literary Tropes

• Reference: p. 269 — “Cyborg anthropology is a dangerous activity…”
• Contribution: Reframes “danger” as both a metaphorical trope and a methodological stance, echoing literary themes of subversion and resistance.

✦ Main Ideas and Arguments

◉ Ecofeminism vs. Haraway’s Cyborg

• Ecofeminism emphasizes bonds between women and nature, drawing on “parallel oppressions” and promoting an “ethic of caring and solidarity” (Alaimo, 1994, p. 133).
• Haraway’s cyborg/postmodern feminism destabilizes binaries like nature/culture and human/technology, radically unsettling the category of “nature” (p. 133).
• Alaimo positions her work “between the cyborg and ecofeminist poles,” seeking a critical environmental feminism that avoids romantic essentialism and technophilia (p. 133–134).

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◉ Critiques of Ecofeminism

• Ecofeminism gained popularity (e.g., Ms. and Hypatia features), but critics argued it became too “ethics and lifestyle” oriented, neglecting political praxis.
  • Ariel Salleh: anthologies are “largely preoccupied with ethics, life-style, self-realization, cultural ritual and art… while 465 million people starve today” (p. 134).
  • Stephanie Lahar: warned of declining references to political action, asking “Can we afford not to have an action-oriented philosophy… when we are literally threatened… by nuclear war or ecological destruction?” (p. 134).

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◉ Problems with the “Mother Earth” Image

• Popularized in ecofeminism, male-dominated environmentalism, and capitalist culture.
• Carolyn Merchant warned against reinstating “nature as the mother of humankind” since both women and nature “need to be liberated from the anthropomorphic and stereotypic labels” (p. 136).
• Earth Day 1990 TV special portrayed Mother Earth as a “sick, selfless victim” saved by consumerism and housekeeping, shifting responsibility onto women while excusing systemic polluters (pp. 136–137).
• Alaimo: “Domestic imagery makes earth saving just another domestic chore” (p. 137).

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◉ Woman–Animal Boundaries and Cyborg Transgressions

• Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature blurred the woman/animal boundary to create ecofeminist solidarity.
  • Example: horse waiting for her master parallels housewife waiting for husband (p. 139).
  • Criticism: risks reinforcing women/animals as passive victims.
• Haraway’s cyborg challenges multiple dualisms (mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, agent/resource) to undermine domination (p. 140).
• Whale Adoption Project: personalized whales to foster empathy, yet still infantilized them (“they need to be ‘adopted’ by humans”) (p. 140).

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◉ Glorification and Mystification of Nature

• Ecofeminists valorize nature and women, but mystification risks reinforcing dualisms.
  • Griffin: “Behind naming, beneath words, is something else… an existence unnamed and unnameable” (p. 143).
• Such mystical essentialism can be re-articulated into patriarchal/racist narratives, e.g., truck commercials eroticizing domination of Native women, animals, and landscapes (pp. 143–144).
• Haraway and Merchant counter this by envisioning nature as agentic, not passive resource.
  • Haraway’s “Coyote discourse” emphasizes nature as witty, unpredictable agent (p. 145).
  • Merchant: “Nonhuman nature is dynamic and alive. As a historical actor, nature interacts with human beings through mutual ecological relations” (p. 145).

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◉ Cyborg Politics in a Nuclear Age

• Haraway’s cyborg embraces blurred human/machine boundaries, rejecting technophobia.
  • “The machine is not an it to be animated, worshiped and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment” (p. 147).
• Problem: U.S. technoculture already eroticizes weapons and militarism.
  • Ads liken pilots’ “control stick” to phallic power; Reagan joked about football players as MX missiles (pp. 146–147).
  • Carol Cohn showed nuclear discourse filled with orgasmic, phallic metaphors (p. 147).
• Thus, cyborgian boundary-blurring risks reinforcing, not subverting, phallotechnology.

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◉ Toward an Activist Alliance

• Ecofeminism risks essentialism; cyborg politics risks technophilia.
• Alaimo calls for “articulating both women and nature as agents in a mutual struggle” (p. 149).
• Rather than grounding politics in essential affinities (woman = nature), environmental feminism should build coalitions based on political alliances (p. 149).
• Such an approach emphasizes women’s activism and nature’s agency, resisting co-optation by capitalism or patriarchy.

🟠Post-Marxist Theory (Articulation – Laclau & Mouffe)

• Alaimo applies articulation theory to ecofeminist and cyborg discourses.
• She argues that meaning is never fixed but depends on political articulation.
• Contribution: Shows how cultural texts (ads, TV shows, ecofeminist anthologies) can be articulated toward feminist ecological critique or toward patriarchal capitalism.
• Quote: “Ideologies have no essential meaning… what they mean depends upon how they are ‘articulated’” (Alaimo, 1994, p. 134).

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🟠 Cultural Studies (Interventionist Critique)

• Alaimo situates ecofeminism and cyborg theory within cultural studies’ praxis of intervention.
• Contribution: Demonstrates how theory and critique must engage with popular culture (Earth Day TV, truck commercials, ads) to reveal hidden ideologies.
• Quote: She asks how critics can “assess the politics of particular ideologies and intervene in ways that will benefit both feminism and environmentalism” (p. 133).

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🟡 Feminist Theory (Nature/Culture Dualism)

• Haraway destabilizes the binary of nature vs. culture, which underlies women’s and nature’s oppression.
• Ecofeminism often reinscribes the dualism by glorifying “Mother Earth.”
• Contribution: Alaimo shows that both reinforcement and destabilization of this dualism carry risks, urging careful theoretical navigation.
• Quote: Ecofeminism promotes “an ethic of caring” (p. 133), while Haraway “seek[s] to destabilize the nature/culture dualism” (p. 133).

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🟢 Ecofeminism (Ethics of Care and Affinity)

• Ecofeminism links women and nature through solidarity, but risks essentialism.
• Contribution: Alaimo critiques ecofeminism’s reliance on metaphors like “Mother Earth,” which can be co-opted by patriarchy and consumerism.
• Quote: Critics like Ariel Salleh note ecofeminist anthologies are “preoccupied with ethics, life-style, [and] ritual” while global crises rage (p. 134).

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🔵 Feminist Epistemology (Situated Knowledges)

• Haraway’s theory redefines objectivity as partial, situated knowledge rather than universal mastery.
• Contribution: Alaimo imports this into eco-criticism, suggesting a shift from mystical “nature” to nature as agent.
• Quote: “Situated knowledges require that the object of knowledge be pictured as an actor and agent” (p. 145).

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🟣 Posthumanism / Cyborg Theory

• Cyborgs destabilize human/animal/machine divides, creating hybrid subjectivity.
• Contribution: Alaimo highlights the ambivalence—cyborg politics can resist domination or bolster technophilia in militarized culture.
• Quote: “Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial” (p. 146).
• Quote: “The machine is us, our processes… We can be responsible for machines” (p. 147).

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🟥 Technoculture & Phallotechnology Critique

• Feminist cultural theory reveals militarized eroticization of technology.
• Contribution: Alaimo shows how cyborg theory must grapple with “phallotechnology” if it is to remain oppositional in a nuclear age.
• Quote: Caputi: “Idealized virility is thus gleefully fused to weaponry and to… earth-destroying lethality” (p. 147).

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🟤 Materialist Feminism (Artifactualism & Coyote Discourse)

• Haraway refigures nature as “artifactual,” co-constructed by humans and nonhumans.
• Contribution: Alaimo incorporates this into ecofeminism, urging a move away from mystical Mother Nature toward agentic, unpredictable figures like the Coyote Trickster.
• Quote: Nature is “made, but not entirely by humans; it is a co-construction among humans and non-humans” (p. 145).
• Quote: “The Coyote or Trickster… suggests the situation we are in when we give up mastery” (p. 145).

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🟩 Coalitional Feminism (Diana Fuss)

• Coalitions should be grounded in politics, not essential affinities.
• Contribution: Alaimo advances a feminist ecological politics based on alliances of women and nature as agents, not as victims.
• Quote: Politics must be “the basis of a possible coalition of women” (p. 149).

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🟫 Environmental Feminism (Activist Alliance)

• Core Contribution: Alaimo synthesizes ecofeminism and cyborg theory into an activist alliance model, articulating women and nature as political co-agents.
• Quote: “Articulating women and nature as agents in a mutual struggle… could strengthen environmental feminism’s political impetus while opposing the appropriation of nature as passive resource” (pp. 133, 149).

🔴 Overreliance on Haraway and Ecofeminist Dichotomy

• Alaimo positions herself between ecofeminism and Haraway’s cyborg but may reduce both to simplified poles.
• Critics might argue she overlooks internal diversity within ecofeminism (spiritual, materialist, activist strands) and within cyborg/posthuman feminism.

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🟠 Abstract Theorizing vs. Practical Activism

• While Alaimo stresses “intervention,” her essay is still highly theoretical.
• Critics may claim her proposals for articulating women and nature as “co-agents” remain abstract, without concrete strategies for activism.

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🟡 Potential Undermining of Ecofeminist Spirituality

• Alaimo critiques mystical ecofeminist writings (e.g., Griffin) for reinforcing dualisms.
• Critics sympathetic to spiritual ecofeminism may see this as dismissing alternative, embodied, or indigenous epistemologies that resist Western rationalism.

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🟢 Ambiguity in Cyborg Critique

• While acknowledging Haraway’s cyborg as destabilizing dualisms, Alaimo highlights its risk of technophilia.
• Critics may find her stance ambivalent—neither fully embracing nor fully rejecting cyborg theory—leaving unresolved tensions.

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🔵 Limited Engagement with Non-Western Perspectives

• Alaimo critiques Western ecofeminist imagery (Mother Earth, Earth Day media) but engages little with non-Western or indigenous ecofeminisms.
• This could be seen as a gap, given that global ecofeminist practices provide alternatives to both romantic essentialism and technophilia.

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🟣 Dependence on Popular Culture Critiques

• Some may argue her analysis of cultural texts (Earth Day TV, truck commercials, whale adoption letters) risks being too anecdotal.
• This reliance may weaken claims to broader theoretical universality.

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🟤 Ambivalence of “Activist Alliance” Model

• Alaimo proposes women and nature as “co-agents” in struggle, but the model is not fully developed.
• Critics might see this as utopian or insufficiently detailed for guiding ecofeminist praxis.

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⚫ Marginalization of Race and Class Dimensions

• While gender and nature are central, critics might note limited attention to how race, class, and colonialism intersect with ecofeminist or cyborg discourses.
• This makes the intervention less intersectional compared to later eco-critical and feminist scholarship.

🌐 The Silent Revolution of Algorithms

• Bunz argues that the digital revolution is “silent” because it unfolds without hype but deeply transforms society: “Algorithms and data merge in automatized processes of intellectual labour… this slippery slope into an algorithmic society unfolds relatively unnoticed” (Bunz, 2016, p. 249).
• Unlike past technologies (e.g., the printing press, Haraway’s cyborg), today’s technology is rarely debated politically; instead, it is framed as economic disruption—what Christopher Kelty calls a “Fog of Freedom” (p. 249).
• She stresses that society misses the chance to consciously shape technology: “We don’t debate what we want from technology… we are either for or against it” (p. 250).

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🔄 Beyond Critique: Turning Towards Technology

• Mere criticism of algorithms is insufficient; action and engagement are needed. Bunz notes: “A negative critique of technology is in danger to fail when it does not actively change anything” (p. 250).
• Drawing on Gilbert Simondon, she proposes a “dialogue with technology”—humans should be in an “ensemble with the machine” rather than distant critics (p. 251).
• Leaving technical expertise solely to corporations or hackers is politically dangerous: “As digital technology has become part of our daily environment… we are all asked to make more of an effort of consciously interacting with technology” (p. 251).

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👩‍💻 Algorithms and Skilled Work

• Algorithms disrupt skilled professions much as machines disrupted manual labor.
• Expertise once exclusive to professionals (doctors, lawyers, journalists) is now “accessible to everyone” and in some cases partially automated (e.g., U.S. legal “e-discovery” software replacing document reviewers) (p. 251).
• Yet, Bunz stresses algorithms will not fully replace experts: “Information needs contextual knowledge to be judged… automation of knowledge needs to be guarded by experts” (p. 252).
• Conclusion: Experts are not erased, but their areas of work are transformed.

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👥 The Role of Citizens

• Citizens must cultivate digital literacy: not necessarily coding, but understanding algorithmic limits.
• Bunz asks: “Why a company knows more about me, thanks to analysing data, than I can?” (p. 252).
• She cites Luciana Parisi’s call to study “algorithmic thought” as central to understanding contemporary knowledge and society (p. 252).
• Political urgency: technology is “too important for our societies” to be left unexamined (p. 252).

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📰 The Public Sphere in the Digital Age

• The internet democratizes media, giving “an alternative channel for each single member of the public” (p. 252).
• Examples include The Guardian’s early adoption of participatory journalism and social media’s role in movements like Black Lives Matter (p. 253).
• However, risks include mass surveillance, trolling, and unequal visibility: “Some ends are far better connected than others and have more reach: the thick ‘head’ has an advantage over its thin long tail” (p. 253).
• Thus, digital publics are simultaneously more open and more vulnerable.

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🎓 Universities and Humanities in Dialogue with Technology

• Bunz argues that universities, especially the humanities, must engage with technology.
• Since algorithms are now a “cultural technique”, humanities scholars should study them as part of knowledge systems: “What can we know? is a classic question posed in the humanities” (p. 253).
• She envisions universities as active spaces for developing a hands-on, cultural dialogue with algorithms.

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📡 Making the Silent Revolution Heard

• The upcoming Internet of Things will make technology’s effects increasingly visible: “As things are just about to start babbling… it will soon be hard to ignore it” (p. 254).
• Yet, scholars caution against living with opaque systems: “If we don’t want to live with a technology that is a black box, we all need to interact with it more attentively” (p. 254).

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✅ Core Thesis: Mercedes Bunz calls for a dialogue with technology—a conscious, collective, and interdisciplinary engagement that moves beyond critique to active participation. Without such engagement, society risks ceding control of knowledge, work, and the public sphere to opaque, corporate-driven algorithms.

🤖 Posthumanism and Philosophy of Technology

This chapter pushes posthumanist theory from the abstract to the practical by providing a clear methodology for engaging with non-human actors (algorithms).

• Decentering the Human: Bunz directly challenges the humanist concept of human mastery over tools. She advocates for Gilbert Simondon’s model of an “ensemble,” where humans and machines coexist in a partnership, forcing a re-evaluation of human exceptionalism.

Reference: “Simondon understood the human as being in an ‘ensemble’ with the machine, instead of being the master above it.”

• Aligning with Cyberfeminism: By citing Donna Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” Bunz places her argument in a lineage of theories that see technology not as a neutral tool but as a politically charged agent capable of transforming social structures and identity.

Reference: She lists “Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1987)” as a “prominent example for research addressing the political side of technology.”

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🏛️ Political Theory and Media Studies

Bunz updates classical political theory for the digital age, arguing that algorithms are fundamentally reshaping the public sphere and the nature of political identity.

• Redefining the Zoon Politikon: The chapter argues that our identity as “political animals” who engage in public discourse is threatened. Algorithmic processes replace human “opinion forming” with automated “decision-making,” thus altering a core component of political life.

Reference: “…it questions our identity as zoon politikon. What once was opinion forming has now been taken over by decision-making machines…”

• Critiquing the Digital Public Sphere: Bunz provides a nuanced critique of the internet’s democratizing effect. Using the concept of “the long tail,” she shows how the technical architecture of the internet does not guarantee a democratic distribution of attention, a vital contribution to theories of digital discourse.

Reference: “The social functions of those ends are far less democratic than the technical functions. Some ends are far better connected than others and have more reach: the thick ‘head’ has an advantage over its thin long tail.”

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💻 Digital Humanities and Software Studies

The text serves as a direct call to action for the humanities, defining its crucial role in an era dominated by computational culture.

• Validating Humanistic Methods: Bunz argues that the humanities are uniquely positioned to analyze algorithmic culture because their expertise has always been the study of “human knowledge storing” (e.g., writing, books). She reframes computer code as a cultural text that requires the same rigorous analysis.

Reference: “Today, algorithms are a cultural technique, so from my perspective, it is the humanities that are concerned with human culture.”

• Promoting Algorithmic Literacy: The chapter insists that understanding “algorithmic thought” is not just for computer scientists. It is a necessary literacy for anyone studying contemporary culture, pushing the humanities to engage with technology on a technical and conceptual level.

Reference: “As my colleague Luciana Parisi (2013) puts it: when we are interested in what knowledge and thinking is today, we need to study ‘algorithmic thought’.”

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🌐 New Materialism

Bunz’s work contributes a strong argument for material engagement, suggesting that abstract, text-based critique is insufficient for understanding and changing our technological world.

• Critique Through Action: The chapter argues that detached criticism of technology is ineffective. It advocates for a materialist approach where critique is followed by “action,” meaning direct interaction and a hands-on dialogue with technological systems.

Reference: “This shows clearly that a negative critique of technology is in danger to fail when it does not actively change anything.”

• Moving Beyond Representation: By insisting on a “dialogue,” Bunz moves the focus from what technology represents to what it does. This aligns with new materialist theories that prioritize the agency and material effects of non-human objects over their interpretation alone.

Reference: “As digital technology has become part of our daily environment… we are all asked to make more of an effort of consciously interacting with technology, and in understanding it…”

뜬 Conceptual Vagueness and Idealism

• The central concept of a “dialogue with technology” is arguably metaphorical and idealistic, lacking a concrete, practical definition. It remains unclear how an individual or society can have a meaningful “dialogue” with a non-sentient, privately-owned, and often opaque algorithmic system. The term risks romanticizing technology and anthropomorphizing code, distracting from the human-driven corporate and political interests that actually control it.

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🧐 Dismissal of Traditional Critique

• Bunz’s assertion that “a negative critique of technology is in danger to fail when it does not actively change anything” can be seen as a significant underestimation of the power of critical theory. The primary function of critique is not always to produce immediate, measurable change (like market share shifts), but to expose underlying ideologies, power structures, and social consequences. By framing critique as a failure if it’s not followed by “action,” the argument devalues the crucial intellectual work of raising awareness, shaping discourse, and informing policy.

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👤 Individualization of Systemic Problems

• The call for citizens to become more “digitally literate” and to “make more of an effort” risks placing the burden of solving systemic issues onto the individual user. This approach can deflect responsibility from the powerful corporations that design and profit from these systems and the governments that fail to regulate them. It suggests that the solution to mass surveillance, data exploitation, and algorithmic bias is individual education rather than collective political action and robust structural reform.

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⚖️ Masking of Power Asymmetries

• Using terms like “ensemble” to describe the human-machine relationship creates a false equivalence that masks the profound power imbalance at play. A user and a platform like Google or Facebook are not equal partners in an “ensemble.” The corporation dictates the terms of engagement, owns the infrastructure, and controls the data. This framing can obscure the fundamentally exploitative dynamics of the relationship, where the user is often the product, not a collaborator.

1. Haraway’s Cyborg and Christian Theology

• Tatman argues that Donna Haraway’s cyborg imagery is deeply indebted to Christian theological metaphors, despite Haraway’s claims of radical rupture.
• Haraway repeatedly uses terms such as “incarnation,” “salvation history,” “apocalypse,” and “Garden of Eden” (Tatman, 2003, p. 51).
• These references signal that the cyborg may not exist “outside salvation history,” as Haraway claims, but is instead tightly coupled with Western Christian symbolic traditions (p. 52).

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2. Cyborg as a Savior-Figure

• Tatman contends that Haraway’s cyborg assumes a soteriological role, functioning like a modern savior.
• She asks whether Haraway is “offering cyborgs as the saviours of the 21st century” and argues that indeed, cyborgs are imagined as liberators for the marginalized and despised (Tatman, 2003, p. 52).
• This parallels Christian salvation narratives, where divine figures intervene on behalf of the oppressed.

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3. Problematic Theological Dependence

• Haraway asserts that the cyborg is “outside salvation history” and “without innocence” (Haraway, 1991a, as cited in Tatman, 2003, p. 52).
• Yet Tatman demonstrates that Haraway paradoxically places the cyborg in the Garden, albeit without God’s omniscient gaze (Tatman, 2003, p. 53).
• This shows an inescapable reliance on theological frameworks, even in supposedly post-theological discourse.

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4. The Origin Story of Cyborgs

• Contrary to Haraway’s insistence that cyborgs lack an origin story, Tatman traces their genesis to the 19th century, linking them to:
  • Heilsgeschichte (salvation history),
  • The Industrial Revolution, and
  • Marxist thought (Tatman, 2003, p. 55).
• This “trinitarian union” situates cyborgs within both technological and theological histories, undermining their supposed mythic autonomy.

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5. Apocalypse and Eschatology

• Tatman highlights Haraway’s neglect of the epistemological aspects of apocalypse, focusing only on its teleological “end” dimension.
• Apocalyptic texts, she notes, were written by and for the oppressed, revealing divine mysteries rather than literal predictions of doom (Tatman, 2003, p. 56).
• Haraway’s cyborgs inherit this apocalyptic heritage, becoming “apocalyptic creatures – not by choice, but by birthright” (p. 57).

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6. Cyborgs as Diasporic and God-like

• Cyborgs, Tatman writes, are diasporic beings with no homeland and no covenant with God, but nonetheless resemble God in their omnipresence and technological power (Tatman, 2003, pp. 58–59).
• Haraway herself admits that “modern machinery is an irreverent upstart god, mocking the Father’s ubiquity” (Haraway, 1991a, as cited in Tatman, 2003, p. 59).
• Thus, cyborgs function as a new incarnation of divinity, even while rejecting the transcendent Father God.

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7. Salvation by Cyborg vs. Salvation by God

• Tatman argues that the “cyborg incarnation” mirrors Christian salvation history rather than escaping it.
• Both assume:
  • (a) a human need for salvation, and
  • (b) salvation occurring in historical time (Tatman, 2003, p. 52).
• Haraway’s insistence that cyborgs are outside salvation history, Tatman suggests, is undermined by her continual use of theological language (p. 60).

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8. The Danger of Indifference

• Tatman concludes that the gravest danger of cyborgs is not their non-innocence, but their inherited capacity for indifference (Tatman, 2003, p. 63).
• She contrasts this with the metaphor of “sin,” which preserves passion and embodied humanity: “The nice thing about the metaphors ‘sin’ and ‘sinner’ is that they include, implicitly, an understanding of humans as fleshy, passionate” (p. 63).
• For survival, Tatman insists, it may be the sinner—embodied, passionate humanity—rather than the indifferent cyborg, that saves us in the end.

1. Feminist Theory and Posthumanism

• Tatman critiques Haraway’s cyborg as a feminist icon by situating it within Christian soteriological frameworks.
• Contribution: She challenges the posthuman feminist claim that the cyborg transcends traditional narratives, arguing instead that Haraway’s “cyborg soteriology” mirrors problematic structures of salvation theology (Tatman, 2003, p. 52).
• This reorients feminist theory to acknowledge that supposedly radical metaphors may still be constrained by patriarchal-religious traditions.

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2. Literary Theology (Religion in Literary Criticism)

• Tatman demonstrates that Haraway’s texts are unintelligible without their theological references: “take away these theological/religious concepts, and I suggest one is left with practically no meaningful content whatsoever” (Tatman, 2003, p. 53).
• Contribution: She integrates theological hermeneutics into literary/posthuman criticism, showing that literary theory must account for the persistence of Christian metaphors in cultural texts—even when deployed ironically.
• This strengthens the theoretical bridge between theology and literature, situating cyborg discourse in the tradition of Heilsgeschichte (salvation history).

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3. Critical Theory (Frankfurt School / Marxist Dimensions)

• Tatman links cyborg origins to the Industrial Revolution, Marxist critique, and salvation history as a “trinitarian union” (Tatman, 2003, p. 55).
• Contribution: This Marxist-inflected reading positions the cyborg as both a product of industrial capitalism and a myth of historical progress, thereby embedding Haraway’s myth in ideology critique.
• In literary theory, this expands cyborg studies beyond feminist identity politics into a critique of capitalism, technology, and historical materialism.

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4. Apocalyptic and Eschatological Narratives

• Tatman shows that Haraway’s cyborg inherits the apocalyptic imagination, becoming an “apocalyptic creature – not by choice, but by birthright” (Tatman, 2003, p. 57).
• Contribution: She reads the cyborg as part of apocalyptic narrative traditions in literature, aligning it with genres of revelation, catastrophe, and redemption.
• For literary theory, this situates the cyborg alongside symbolic structures of eschatology and apocalypse, reinforcing Catherine Keller’s argument that apocalypse “metabolizes within us and outside of ourselves” (Keller, 1996, as cited in Tatman, 2003, p. 57).

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5. Poststructuralism and Deconstruction

• Tatman identifies paradoxes in Haraway’s insistence that the cyborg is outside salvation history, arguing: “The lady protests too much, methinks” (Tatman, 2003, p. 60).
• Contribution: This deconstructive gesture reveals how Haraway’s discourse remains entangled in what it denies—illustrating Derrida’s principle that exclusions still carry traces of what they reject.
• Thus, Tatman contributes to poststructuralist literary theory by exposing the cyborg as a text haunted by Christian metaphysical binaries.

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6. Diaspora and Cultural Identity Theory

• Tatman reframes the cyborg as a diasporic creature, with “no homeland” and only an “email address” as its permanent identity marker (Tatman, 2003, p. 58).
• Contribution: This adds a diaspora studies dimension to literary theory, connecting the cyborg to displacement, hybridity, and fractured belonging.
• It opens cyborg discourse to postcolonial literary analysis by aligning cyborg ontology with migrant and diasporic subjectivities.

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7. Ethics, Embodiment, and Affect Theory

• Tatman contrasts the metaphor of the sinner (embodied, passionate, desiring) with the cyborg’s indifference: “What scares me the most about cyborgs is… our Godly and technological capacity for indifference” (Tatman, 2003, p. 63).
• Contribution: She extends affect theory and embodiment studies by foregrounding passion, desire, and flesh as ethical correctives to technological abstraction.
• This positions literary theory to consider how metaphors of sin and salvation preserve embodied humanity in contrast to disembodied, indifferent cyborg logics.

⚡ Over-Theologizing Haraway

• Tatman arguably overstates the role of Christian theology in Haraway’s cyborg theory.
• Critics may argue that Haraway’s use of terms like salvation, apocalypse, or Garden is largely metaphorical and ironic, not evidence of ontological dependence.
• Tatman risks collapsing playful metaphor into theological determinism.

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🔄 Paradox of Deconstruction

• Tatman critiques Haraway for being unable to escape salvation history but simultaneously uses Haraway’s own metaphors against her.
• This could be seen as a circular critique—accusing Haraway of entanglement while reinforcing the same entanglement through Tatman’s own reading.

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📜 Historical Essentialism

• Tatman links cyborg origins to a “trinitarian union” of salvation history, Industrial Revolution, and Marxist thought (Tatman, 2003, p. 55).
• Critics might see this as overly essentialist and historically reductive, ignoring non-Western and non-Christian traditions that shape technological imaginaries.

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🌀 Neglect of Posthuman Potential

• By emphasizing theological entrapment, Tatman downplays Haraway’s radical feminist potential of the cyborg as a tool of resistance and hybridity.
• Her reading risks flattening cyborg discourse into theology, leaving little space for posthuman or queer futurities.

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🌍 Eurocentric Framing

• Tatman situates cyborg identity primarily in Western Christian symbolic systems.
• Critics may argue this neglects global, pluralistic, and indigenous perspectives on technology, embodiment, and myth.

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❤️ Preference for “Sinner” Over Cyborg

• Tatman concludes that “the sinner, not the cyborg, may save us” (Tatman, 2003, p. 63).
• This metaphor risks romanticizing human sinfulness while underestimating technological embodiment as a site of passion and agency.
• Critics may view this as a nostalgic retreat into theological humanism.

🔹 Introduction: Cyborgs and the Post-Human

• Pheasant-Kelly situates the cyborg as a central post-human figure in science fiction cinema.
• Unlike aliens in Star Wars (1977), cyborgs emphasize the human-machine interface, blurring distinctions between human subjectivity and technological embodiment (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 55).
• She draws on Baudrillard’s simulacrum and Kristeva’s abjection to explain how cyborgs destabilize boundaries (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 55).

Quote:
“Boundary maintenance is integral to the coherent subject, both in relation to repression of corporeal abjection and to the preservation of ego” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 55).

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🔹 Post-Humanism and Theoretical Framework

• References key thinkers: Haraway (1991), Hayles (1999), Badmington (2000), Bell (2007).
• Post-humanism challenges distinctions between human and non-human, organism and machine.
• Hayles argues that the post-human privileges information over embodiment, treating the body as “an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life” (Hayles, 1999, p. 3).
• Post-human hybridity raises cultural anxieties about technology, evolution, and identity.

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🔹 Abjection and Kristeva’s Theory

• Abjection = disturbance of identity, order, and boundary (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4).
• Cyborgs embody abjection because they are “in-between, the ambiguous, the composite” (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4).
• Films like Terminator 2 and RoboCop foreground the abject body through violent, traumatic transformations (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, pp. 58–61).

Quote:
“The abject has this dialectical appeal, being both repulsive yet alluring” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 59).

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🔹 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

• T101 learns human morality and culture from John Connor—highlighting post-human subjectivity (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 59).
• Scenes of bodily violation (cutting his arm, CPU removal, torn flesh) emphasize the abject hybridity of flesh and machine.
• T101 adopts human signifiers—language (“no problemo”), gestures (“thumbs-up”), and empathy (“I know now why you cry”).
• T1000 represents fluid abjection: unstable, boundaryless, feminized, and lacking subjectivity (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, pp. 59–60).

Quote:
“The T1000 has no clear boundary and becomes integrated with objects and surfaces with which it comes into contact” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 60).

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🔹 RoboCop (1987)

• Murphy’s violent death and rebirth as RoboCop reflects traumatic abjection and the erasure of subjectivity.
• Controlled by OCP’s directives, RoboCop parallels the infantile state within the maternal semiotic chora (Kristeva, 1984).
• Identity resurfaces through flashbacks, gestures (gun-twirling), and the mirror stage, signaling self-recognition (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 61).
• The final reclaiming of the name “Murphy” represents the impossibility of repressing identity.

Quote:
“Like Terminator 2, RoboCop demonstrates the impossibility of repressing identity within the post-hybrid body” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 62).

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🔹 Medical and Cultural Anxieties

• Cyborg imagery reflects real-world anxieties about organ transplants, brain death, and medical technologies (Blank, 2001; Lock, 2002).
• Cyborgs embody cultural fears of death’s ambiguity—patients on life support, comatose states, and identity loss (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, pp. 62–63).
• The hybrid body becomes a metaphor for biomedical uncertainty and ethical dilemmas.

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🔹 Conclusion: Identity and Post-Human Hybridity

• Cyborg films like T2 and RoboCop explore the tensions between humanity and technology, showing that while cyborgs may be post-human, they are “not beyond identity” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 63).
• Abjection provides a critical framework to analyze subjectivity, hybridity, and cultural anxieties in post-human cinema.

Quote:
“The cybernetic organism may be post-human but is not beyond identity” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 63).

🤖 Post-Humanism

• Pheasant-Kelly situates T2 and RoboCop within debates on cyborgs and technological identity, drawing from Haraway (1991), Hayles (1999), and Bell (2007).
• The article shows how human and machine boundaries blur: the T101 becomes “more human” through John Connor’s teaching of morals and empathy (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 59).
• Contributes to literary/posthuman theory by demonstrating that cinematic texts negotiate philosophical questions of humanity and evolution, not just technological spectacle.

Quote:
“The posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history” (Hayles, 1999, p. 3, as cited in Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 56).

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🌀 Abjection (Kristevan Psychoanalysis)

• Applies Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror (1982) to science fiction cinema, extending abjection beyond horror into post-human identity studies.
• Shows cyborgs as abject hybrids, disturbing order and identity:
  • T101’s bloody arm-cutting scene reveals flesh + machine (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 59).
  • T1000’s fluid form exemplifies abjection through instability and ambiguity (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 60).
• Contribution: Expands abjection to analyze how cultural texts use bodily boundaries to dramatize subjectivity and hybridity.

Quote:
“Abjection arises in ‘the in-between, the ambiguous, the composite’” (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4, as cited in Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 55).

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🪞 Psychoanalytic Theory (Lacan & Subjectivity)

• Draws on Lacan’s Mirror Stage to explain how cyborgs reclaim identity.
• In RoboCop, Murphy’s recognition of his face in the mirror signifies a return of subjectivity after abjection (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 61).
• Contribution: Shows how cinema enacts psychosexual development through cyborg narratives.

Quote:
“Murphy’s self-recognition is an important stage in assuming his previous identity” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 61).

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⚖️ Cultural Theory & Simulacrum (Baudrillard)

• Engages Baudrillard’s (1994) concept of simulacrum, where copies dominate originals.
• Example: Blade Runner (1982) raises questions of identity by making it unclear whether Deckard is human or replicant (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 55).
• Contribution: Positions cyborg cinema as part of postmodern cultural critique, destabilizing authenticity and originality.

Quote:
“One of the central questions raised by the film is the nature of Deckard’s identity” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 55).

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⚔️ Gender Theory / Feminist Film Theory

• Engages with Yvonne Tasker (1993) and Christine Cornea (2007) on cyborg masculinities.
• Shows how T2 contrasts the solid masculinity of T101 with the “terrifying fluidity” of the feminized T1000 (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 57).
• Contribution: Moves away from a purely gendered reading, reorienting cyborg analysis toward abjection and subjectivity, enriching feminist/posthuman debate.

Quote:
“The updated Terminator is typified by a lack of the bodily definition that is so important to the masculinity of the bodybuilder” (Tasker, 1993, p. 83, as cited in Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 57).

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⚰️ Biopolitics & Medical Humanities

• Connects cyborg abjection to medical and ethical debates: organ transplants, life-support, brain death, and identity loss.
• Example: RoboCop dramatizes anxieties of “real death,” echoing Blank’s (2001) concerns about defining death in medical science (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 62).
• Contribution: Brings science fiction into dialogue with biopolitical and medical humanities discourse, extending literary theory toward applied ethics.

Quote:
“Real cyborgs, such as those patients on life-support machines, represent life perpetually on the brink of death” (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 63).

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✅ Overall Contribution

• Pheasant-Kelly’s article advances literary theory by:
  • Extending Kristevan abjection into post-human studies.
  • Applying psychoanalytic frameworks (Lacan, Kristeva) to cinematic cyborg identity.
  • Reframing feminist/gender debates toward abjection and subjectivity.
  • Linking post-humanism with biopolitical anxieties of medical culture.
• The article establishes cyborg cinema as a site where cultural theory, psychoanalysis, gender studies, and post-humanism intersect.

🔹 Over-Reliance on Psychoanalysis

• Heavy dependence on Kristeva’s abjection and Lacanian theory may limit interpretive diversity.
• Critics may argue that post-humanism could be equally (or better) explained through technological, cultural, or materialist approaches rather than psychoanalytic ones.
• The article risks imposing psychoanalytic categories onto films rather than letting cinematic texts generate new theoretical insights.

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🔹 Neglect of Political/Economic Contexts

• While it references medical and cultural anxieties, the analysis underplays industrial, political, and capitalist forces shaping cyborg imagery.
• RoboCop especially is a satire of corporate capitalism and militarization, but Pheasant-Kelly emphasizes abjection and subjectivity over socio-political critique.

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🔹 Gender Analysis Overshadowed

• Although Pheasant-Kelly cites Tasker and Cornea, the article explicitly states it “moves away” from gendered analyses (Pheasant-Kelly, 2009, p. 57).
• Critics might argue this sidelines important feminist and queer readings, especially since cyborg bodies are deeply tied to gender fluidity, masculinity, and femininity.

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🔹 Narrow Film Corpus

• Focuses almost exclusively on Terminator 2 (1991) and RoboCop (1987).
• While these are canonical, critics could argue that a broader range of films (e.g., Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, Ex Machina) would provide more comprehensive insights into post-human identity.

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🔹 Theoretical Overlap / Lack of Originality

• The article leans heavily on existing theorists (Kristeva, Haraway, Hayles, Baudrillard) without offering a fully distinct framework of its own.
• Its contribution may be seen as application of theory to film, rather than producing new theoretical innovations.

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🔹 Limited Engagement with Audience Reception

• The reading assumes meaning is located in the text/film, but does not explore how audiences interpret cyborgs or how cultural contexts shape reception.
• Critics might argue that a reception studies approach could enrich the analysis of cyborg subjectivity.

🌸 Main Ideas from A Cyborg’s Father

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🌱 Storytelling and Child Imagination

• Brennan begins with his daughter Syl’s storytelling, where physical and imaginary boundaries blur.
• Syl creates hybrid worlds where “a plush bear milks a paper cow” and “a young witch magics a swimming pool” (Brennan, 2025, p. 171).
• This blending mirrors Haraway’s idea of fluidity and boundarylessness in cyborg identity.
• ✨ Key Point: Childhood imagination models Haraway’s vision of merging species, technology, and identities.

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🤖 Reframing the Cyborg

• Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto imagines a world where boundaries—human/machine, species, gender—collapse (Haraway, 2016, p. 10).
• Brennan contrasts popular sci-fi depictions of cyborgs (Darth Vader, Robocop, Seven of Nine) with Haraway’s practical cyborgism.
• “Here the cyborg is not a centuries-distant mash-up of parts but a reckoning with what bodies and tools and stories are at hand” (Brennan, 2025, p. 172).
• 🌍 Key Point: Cyborg identity is not futuristic fantasy but a lived, embodied condition.

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⏳ Fatherhood, Care, and Medical Cyborgism

• Brennan’s role as a father becomes entwined with technological care for Syl’s chronic illness.
• He calls himself a “timekeeper” who monitors insulin, meals, and blood sugar: “I have never loved numbers; now I find myself always counting” (Brennan, 2025, p. 172).
• Medical technology (CGM, pumps, boluses) situates him as part of Syl’s cyborg system.
• ❤️ Key Point: Care work itself becomes cyborgian, fusing body, machine, and narrative.

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🌌 Speculative Fabulation and New Narratives

• Haraway’s concept of speculative fabulation emphasizes re-seeing what is already present.
• Brennan asks: “What stories have always been present that simply haven’t been told?” (Brennan, 2025, p. 173).
• He draws on Eva Hayward’s “fingery-eyes” and Craig Foster’s My Octopus Teacher to show how interspecies and cross-boundary relations open new forms of storytelling.
• 🌀 Key Point: Cyborgism invites us to narrate unseen relationships and denormalize human-centered history.

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🧪 Medicine as Storytelling

• Brennan redefines medicine not as pure science but as narrative-making amid uncertainty.
• He notes: “Now I see it is a storyteller’s craft, ever circling the unknown, a melodrama of resolution and crisis” (Brennan, 2025, p. 174).
• Medical cyborgism means constructing stories to explain inexplicable bodily-machine failures.
• 📖 Key Point: Medicine and fabulation are both narrative responses to uncertainty.

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🚹 Haraway on Fathers and Storytelling

• Haraway provocatively states: “For cyborgs, fathers, after all, are inessential” (Haraway, 2016, p. 10; cited in Brennan, 2025, p. 175).
• Brennan reflects on how patriarchal traditions of fathers as storytellers must give way to decentered, interdependent narratives.
• Cyborgs, excluded from “reductive, racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, power-hungry fabulations,” become the new storytellers shaping an “extra-human future” (Brennan, 2025, p. 175).
• 🌈 Key Point: Cyborg storytelling challenges patriarchal authorship and embraces interdependence.

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🌟 Conclusion

• Dave Brennan’s chapter blends memoir, theory, and narrative to reinterpret Haraway’s cyborg.
• It emphasizes:
  • Storytelling as survival.
  • Medical technology as part of embodied cyborg identity.
  • Fabulation as a tool for reimagining futures.
  • A feminist, posthumanist critique of patriarchal storytelling.
• Ultimately, Brennan shows how cyborgism reshapes not only theory but also family, care, and literature itself.

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🤖 Posthumanism

• Reference: “Here the cyborg is not a centuries-distant mash-up of parts but a reckoning with what bodies and tools and stories are at hand” (Brennan, 2025, p. 172).
• Contribution: Brennan reframes Haraway’s cyborg as a present, embodied figure rather than a sci-fi fantasy. By embedding his fatherhood and medical caregiving into cyborgism, he contributes to posthumanist thought by showing how technology, bodies, and stories are already entangled in daily life.
• Impact on Theory: This expands posthumanism from abstract philosophy to lived narrative practices of care, illness, and interdependence.

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👩‍🎤 Feminist Literary Theory

• Reference: “Haraway writes that for cyborgs, ‘fathers, after all, are inessential’” (Haraway, 2016, as cited in Brennan, 2025, p. 175).
• Contribution: By engaging Haraway’s rejection of patriarchal storytelling, Brennan critiques the authority of fathers as narrators in cultural history. His account decentralizes the male figure and highlights relational, interdependent storytelling.
• Impact on Theory: This supports feminist theory by destabilizing patriarchal narrative authority and emphasizing alternative, non-hierarchical voices—particularly those of children, caregivers, and cyborg subjects.

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📖 Narratology / Storytelling Theory

• Reference: “Now I see it [medicine] is a storyteller’s craft, ever circling the unknown, a melodrama of resolution and crisis” (Brennan, 2025, p. 174).
• Contribution: Brennan aligns medical practice with narrative-making, showing that stories emerge to manage uncertainty, failure, and crisis. His use of Haraway’s speculative fabulation broadens narratology by integrating imaginative, interspecies, and technological narratives.
• Impact on Theory: He contributes to literary narratology by blurring boundaries between fiction, autobiography, science, and medicine—making narrative central to survival and meaning-making.

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🌍 Ecocriticism / Interspecies Studies

• Reference: “I am reminded of the documentary My Octopus Teacher… an interspecies relationship that wrenches him out of the dark narcissism of human existence” (Brennan, 2025, p. 173).
• Contribution: Brennan’s reflections on octopuses, corals, and children’s imaginations extend Haraway’s interspecies relationality into ecocritical discourse.
• Impact on Theory: This supports ecocriticism by re-centering nonhuman agency and showing how interspecies encounters disrupt anthropocentrism and enrich literary imagination.

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🩺 Medical Humanities

• Reference: “Medical cyborgism is an effort of fabulation… narratives constructed from unanswerable questions” (Brennan, 2025, p. 174).
• Contribution: Brennan shows how chronic illness transforms medicine into a narrative practice, where technological failures and bodily mysteries generate new storytelling forms.
• Impact on Theory: Adds to medical humanities by situating illness and treatment within posthuman fabulation—making health care a site of literary and theoretical innovation.

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✨ Overall Contribution

Dave Brennan’s A Cyborg’s Father bridges posthumanism, feminist theory, narratology, ecocriticism, and medical humanities. By mis/reading Haraway through the lens of fatherhood, caregiving, and chronic illness, Brennan transforms cyborg theory from abstract philosophy into lived, narrative, and interdependent practice. His work expands literary theory by emphasizing how stories, machines, bodies, and relationships co-constitute meaning in contemporary culture.

📖 Over-Personalization of Theory

• Brennan heavily relies on his daughter’s illness and fatherhood to interpret Haraway.
• Critics may argue this reduces Haraway’s broader political and theoretical project to an individualized memoir.
• Risk: The personal lens may obscure the collective, feminist, and anti-capitalist critiques central to Haraway’s manifesto.

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🤖 Narrow Scope of Cyborgism

• While Haraway positions the cyborg as a global, political, and feminist figure, Brennan emphasizes medical caregiving and family life.
• This focus could be seen as domesticating Haraway’s radical vision into a private, affective domain.
• Risk: It sidelines larger issues of labor, race, gender, and capitalism that Haraway links to cyborg politics.

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🧩 Potential Misreading of Haraway

• The subtitle itself—Misreading Donna Haraway—invites critique.
• Some may see Brennan’s interpretation as too selective, emphasizing storytelling and illness while downplaying Haraway’s materialist critique of militarism, technoscience, and patriarchy.
• Risk: Turning Haraway’s manifesto into a poetic-metaphorical text rather than a political intervention.

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🩺 Romanticization of Medical Cyborgism

• Brennan reframes medical technologies (insulin pumps, CGMs) as sites of narrative creativity and fabulation.
• Critics might argue this romanticizes the trauma of chronic illness and technological dependency.
• Risk: Downplays structural issues such as healthcare inequality, accessibility, and systemic failures in medical technology.

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🚹 Ambiguity in Critiquing Fatherhood

• Brennan reflects on Haraway’s claim that “fathers, after all, are inessential.”
• Yet, his narrative re-centers himself as father-storyteller through Syl’s illness.
• Risk: Instead of decentering patriarchal voices, his work may recentralize fatherhood through affective authority.

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🌍 Limited Engagement with Broader Contexts

• Haraway’s cyborg is tied to global capitalism, Cold War militarism, and information technology.
• Brennan’s narrative is localized and micro-focused, missing opportunities to connect Syl’s cyborgism to wider socio-political contexts.
• Risk: The work might feel too insular compared to Haraway’s expansive vision.

🤖 Cyborgs and the Lockdown Condition

• The chapter reactivates Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto in the context of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns, showing how the pandemic accelerated human-machine hybridity.
• Haraway’s cyborg—“a hybrid of machine and organism” (Haraway, p. 149)—is reframed as central to understanding how technology mediates labor, identity, and connection in crises.
• The authors argue, “The Cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics” (p. 150), particularly as lockdowns made us more dependent on screens, devices, and digital networks.

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🧑🏽‍🔬 From ‘Sister Outsiders’ to ‘Cybourgeoisie’

• The chapter contrasts privileged white-collar remote workers (the “cybourgeoisie”) with frontline keyworkers (often women and people of color), redefining who embodies the cyborg.
• Historical labor contexts are invoked: “The first cyborgs were those workers whose work was systemically devalued or constructed as unskilled” (p. 60).
• PPE is reimagined as a “prosthesis that enables, rather than blocks, human connection” (p. 60), challenging technophobic narratives.

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🧬 Gender, Race, and Anti-Essentialist Feminism

• Baker and Ring adopt Haraway’s anti-essentialist stance, stressing that cyborg identity rejects naturalized definitions of gender: “There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female” (p. 172).
• Saidiya Hartman’s account of “wayward lives” (p. 60) informs their view of the cyborg as resisting historical and racialized domination.
• Maria from Metropolis is cited as a prototype of the anti-essentialist cyborg—a figure that oscillates between virginity and sexual freedom (p. 60).

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🏠 The Conservative Return of the ‘Household’

• Lockdown re-imposed the patriarchal, surveilled “household”: “The household has landed back on us with such an almighty conservative thump” (p. 61).
• The chapter warns that digital homes may become “electronic cottages” of isolation and surveillance, deepening inequality and atomization (p. 63).
• Preciado’s analysis of virus-era biopolitics is used to show how domestic spaces became “new frontiers” of disciplinary power (p. 62).

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💡 Technological Resistance and ‘Informatics of Domination’

• Haraway’s concept of “informatics of domination” is key to analyzing how digital systems exacerbate control under capitalism (p. 61).
• The authors echo Haraway: “Science and technology… are possible means of great human satisfaction as well as a matrix of complex dominations” (p. 181).
• They promote critical, skillful use of technology—writing, creating, and connecting—as methods of reclaiming power from these systems.

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🔗 Affinities vs. Identities

• Haraway’s idea of “affinity”—“not by blood but by choice” (p. 155)—is central to their vision of cyborg politics.
• They invoke Goethe’s Elective Affinities to frame household and workplace communities as fluid, experimental constellations (p. 64).
• “Identities at work… can give way to affinities built across the classes created by the neoliberal university” (p. 64).

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🎭 Art, Writing, and Cyborg Creativity

• The cyborg is seen as an artist and writer whose tools are “the least-worst, least-surveillant platform; the webcam and mousepad” (p. 65).
• Lockdown cultures—poetry, philosophy, and virtual gatherings—become arenas for “exposure”, “sharing”, and “presentation of the self” (p. 65).
• The authors cite Nancy’s Inoperative Community as a model for fragile yet meaningful sociality (p. 65).

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📉 Play, Work, and the Critique of Capitalism

• Haraway’s phrase “All work and all play is a dangerous game” (p. 161) captures the risks of gamified, capitalist modes of connection.
• The authors propose a “prosperity without growth” (Jackson, 2017) that values collaborative creativity over profit.
• They caution against influencers and one-way communication, embracing instead “two-way channels that facilitate meaningful dialogue” (p. 65).

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🌍 Outlook: A Cyborg Future Beyond Lockdown

• The chapter ends on a hopeful note: “It is up to the cyborgs… to orientate the momentum… towards greener, happier, healthier and more connected futures” (p. 66).
• Writing, as cyborg practice, becomes a model for empathy, political action, and collective identity.
• Haraway’s vision—“This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia” (p. 181)—serves as the ideological anchor for this new community.

🤖 Posthumanism

• The chapter updates Haraway’s cyborg for 21st-century conditions, presenting the cyborg as a lived condition during the Covid-19 lockdowns rather than a speculative metaphor.
• Reframes identity through technologically mediated embodiment, challenging humanist boundaries between human/machine, public/private, and work/home.
• “We argue that cyborg ‘affinities’ open up new ways of challenging the deadly atomisation… of neoliberal capitalism” (p. 59).
• Links to Giuliana Ferri’s notion of the cyborg as part of “critical interculturalism embedded in outsider narratives” (p. 61).

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🧬 Feminist Literary Theory / Cyberfeminism

• Engages deeply with Haraway’s socialist-feminist cyborg as a figure of political resistance against gender essentialism.
• Critiques pandemic-era gender regression: “There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female’” (Haraway, p. 172; cited on p. 60).
• Challenges normative roles of caregiving, motherhood, and domestic labor during lockdown.
• Positions the cyborg as an anti-essentialist feminist agent resisting both traditional femininity and techno-phobia.

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📡 Biopolitics / Surveillance Studies

• Extends Foucault’s concept of biopower into the digital home, drawing on Paul B. Preciado: lockdowns intensified “disciplinary infiltration of homes, lives and minds” (p. 62).
• Intersects with Haraway’s warning about “informatics of domination” (p. 61), where home-working technologies blur control and care.
• Surveillance becomes embedded not only in government responses but also in domestic life through platform capitalism.

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🔗 Marxist & Political Literary Theory

• Offers a critique of neoliberal capitalism’s restructuring of labor and identity through the pandemic.
• Coins new class identities like the “cybourgeoisie” (white-collar remote workers) versus “keyworker cyborgs” (low-paid essential workers) (pp. 59–60).
• Reflects on intersectionality: race, class, and gender determine who suffers most in the technologized lockdown society.

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🧪 Affect Theory & Community Studies

• Builds on Jean-Luc Nancy’s Inoperative Community to describe affective, artistic, and fragmentary communities formed in lockdown: “exposure, sharing, and presentation of the self” (p. 65).
• Suggests that writing, art, and play during isolation were not escapist but modes of resistance and community-building.
• Embraces Haraway’s vision of partial, collective knowledge: “This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia” (p. 181; cited p. 66).

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🧱 Queer Theory

• Incorporates Saidiya Hartman’s “wayward lives” to highlight historical queer, Black, and feminist resistances to domestic confinement (p. 60).
• Celebrates “the anti-essentialist lives already being lived by cyborg-beings”, particularly queer, racialized, and precarious subjects (p. 60).
• Positions gender, sexuality, and technology as fluid, not fixed, countering binary identities in both theoretical and social terms.

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✍️ Literary Praxis / Writerly Theory

• Writing becomes a cyborg practice—a combination of body, machine, and social resistance.
• “Writing… is a means of connecting, one that helped so many people around the world to make our way through lockdown” (p. 66).
• Reflects on Helene Cixous’s “there-not-there” presence of women’s writing as resistance to invisibility (p. 65).
• Creative labor is framed as both work and play—with the risks of being commodified: “All work and all play is a dangerous game” (Haraway, p. 161; cited on p. 66).

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🏛️ Critical University Studies

• Challenges hierarchical academic identities by encouraging affinities over divisions: “Identities at work… can give way to affinities built across the classes created by the neoliberal university” (p. 64).
• Advocates unionization, solidarity with outsourced workers and students, and rethinking institutional community through cyborg ethics.

⚖️ Class Privilege and the ‘Cybourgeoisie’

• While the chapter critiques privileged remote workers (the “cybourgeoisie”), it also implicitly centers their experience, potentially under-representing those without stable jobs, housing, or tech access.
• “We, in the new cybourgeoisie, adjusted to these new ways of working…” (p. 63) — the authors acknowledge their own privilege but focus much on the academic context, risking elitism.

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🧩 Partiality and Perspective Limitations

• Though Baker and Ring emphasize “partial connection” (p. 65) and non-total knowledge (Haraway, p. 179), they do not always fully explore how their own social locations (race, ability, geography) shape their theory.
• The chapter concedes this when stating: “We acknowledge the partiality of our perspective” (p. 61), but this caveat may not be sufficient for a work tackling global, intersectional crises.

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🏠 Idealization of Affinity and Fluid Community

• The invocation of affinities (p. 64) and “fluid flexibility” of relationships (p. 65) may be criticized as utopian, particularly when structural forces like capitalism, racism, and patriarchy resist such transformation.
• The metaphor of the “vulnerability of a bubble” (p. 65) could be seen as underestimating the durability of systemic violence and identity-based oppression.

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📡 Underplaying Surveillance Risks of Technology

• While the chapter resists technophobia and affirms tech as a means of pleasure and resistance (Haraway, p. 180), it might be too optimistic about the possibilities of “least-worst” platforms (p. 65).
• Critics may argue that digital tools—even “two-way” ones—carry inherent risks of data extraction, commodification, and surveillance that aren’t deeply explored here.

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🧠 Overextension of the Cyborg Metaphor

• The cyborg figure is applied broadly—from keyworkers to writers to Zoom-users—which, while inclusive, may dilute the political potency of the concept.
• Using the cyborg to encompass almost all technologically-mediated human experience risks turning it into a vague or totalizing metaphor.

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✍️ Artistic Creation Framed as Resistance – But for Whom?

• The chapter positions writing and creativity as vital modes of resistance and community (pp. 65–66), yet doesn’t fully examine who is excluded from such artistic access under conditions of poverty, grief, or oppression.
• As the authors ask: “Does [writing] create new forms of invisibility for those without access?” (p. 66) — the question is crucial, but not fully answered.

🔹 Over-Reliance on Speculative and Hypothetical Scenarios

• Much of the article is grounded in future possibilities rather than current, empirically verified developments.
• Speculative examples (e.g. living skin garments, face-swapping bioreactors) lack technological feasibility at present.

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🔹 Lack of Empirical Evidence or Case Studies

• The article doesn’t offer real-world examples, user testing, or fashion industry data to support its claims.
• Absence of interviews or design outcomes from practicing fashion designers or technologists.

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🔹 Blurred Lines Between Science Fiction and Design Theory

• The piece often blends sci-fi imagery with critical fashion theory, which can confuse rather than clarify its theoretical contributions.
• Use of metaphors (e.g. “garment cyborgs” and “flesh cyborgs”) sometimes prioritizes provocation over clarity.

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🔹 Limited Engagement with Ethical and Societal Implications

• Ethical concerns around biotechnology, surveillance, and body modification are mentioned but not deeply examined.
• No discussion of accessibility, equity, or social justice related to wearable technologies.

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🔹 Narrow Cultural Scope

• The focus is primarily on Western technological contexts, overlooking non-Western perspectives on body, fashion, and technology.
• Fails to address how culture, gender, or class may mediate the adoption and interpretation of cybernetic garments.

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🔹 Fashion Function vs. Fashion Aesthetics Oversimplified

• The argument leans toward functionality (smart, responsive, technological garments) without fully accounting for the continued dominance of aesthetics, symbolism, and identity in fashion.

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🔹 Underdeveloped Discussion of Consumer Behavior

• The article overlooks how consumers might resist, adapt to, or reject these technologies.
• Assumes future users will adopt body-enhancing or biotech garments without questioning comfort, cost, or psychological effects.