A Re-cap: Manifesto for Cyborgs

I have come to the end of my theory class and have found myself most intrigued with my readings from Haraway’s excerpt in A Manfesto for Cyborgs (NATC). So I have decided to give a more thorough description of what I found.

“A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism” by Donna Haraway illustrates a new way of thinking towards how individuals and society interact with machines. She represents the idea that we have all become cyborgs, a crossbreed of a human and a machine. It moves from the human condition to a critique in politics and power relations. It lets feminists into the world of hybridization and the idea of crossing boundaries. She argues that people strive for an ordered world and in doing so; they unwillingly destroy the ordered principles. The traditional binary oppositions such as human/animal, organism/machine, man/woman, body/mind, hetero/homo, natural/unnatural, and so forth become blurred. She illustrates how humans are becoming more and more like cyborgs, because of pacemakers, cloning, or modified by genetic engineering. The dependency between living things and machines is constantly increasing.

 She states, “a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (2190). She then continues to discuss cyborg politics and the idea that when individuals realize their identities are culturally constructed, they can reconstruct them in a more proper way. As soon as they acknowledge that their identity has become fragmented, they no longer will be able to dominate others or become dominated themselves. The cyborg does not exist as nature or culture; it is a combination of both and even more. She breaks it down into three major boundaries, human/animal, organism/machine, and lastly, organic/inorganic. It makes way for new and visionary connections. Many films have been created in which the human/machine concept is depicted. These films show that both of these binaries can work together if they transgress boundaries and open the door for a new change.

Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonial Theory
•Said, excerpt from Orientalism (NATC, 1986-2012)
•Spivak, excerpt from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (NATC, 2193-2208)
•Deleuze and Guattari, excerpt from Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (NATC, 1598-1601)

Benedict Anderson writes in a section of Imagined Communities about Latin. How it was once used, became something for the elite, and is now a language to be read, not spoken, and is reserved for the educationally privileged. He says that “for the older Latin was not arcane
because of its subject matter or style, but simply because it was written at all, I.e. because of its status as text” (1918). What is culture supposed to mean anymore anyways? If culture is meant to evolve, what good does it do to simply trickle out the elite from the mainstream? Anderson also notes Martin Luther saying “where Luther led, others quickly followed, opening the colossal
religious propaganda war that raged across Europe for the next century. In this titanic ‘battle for men’s minds’, Protestantism was always fundamentally on the offensive, precisely because it knew how to make use of the expanding vernacular print-market being created by capitalism, while the Counter-Reformation defended the citadel of Latin” (1918).

There is a defensiveness that comes with any progress, this is proven true. In summarization, change is not always welcome. In fact change is typically met with resistance (I assume you know
what’s coming next). There is a specific implication that culture, in fact, is dead. All that is left is recycling of ideas and the idea of something ‘new’ is dead. Culture is recycled. There will be nothing new. Possibly one of the most accessible pieces of evidence for this is fashion. Fashion is never anything new, it is recycled and marketed as something new. Of course there is 80’s revival, 90’s grunge revival, etc. Most recently, there was a 90’s rave culture and bohemian 70’s revival. And of course, these initial fashion statements were based off of something else, and so on. Fashion is proof there is no new culture, only regurgitation of what once was new.

An afterthought that should be noted:

"A single, definitive definition of postcolonial theory is controversial; writers have strongly criticized it as a concept embedded in identity politics. Postcolonial Theory - as epistemology, ethics, and politics - addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonized people's knowledge was used against them in service of the colonizer's interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests. At the same time, postcolonial theory encourages thought about the colonist's creative resistance to the colonizer and how that resistance complicates and gives texture to European imperial colonial projects, which utilized a range of strategies, including anti-conquest narratives, to legitimize their dominance."

Ethnicity and Critical Race Theory

Ethnicityand Critical Race Theory

•DuBois, “Criteria of Negro Art” (NATC, 977-87)
•Gates, “Talking Black: Critical Signs of the Times” (NATC, 2421-2432)

According to the UCLA School of Public Affairs:

“CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. CRT
identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color.”

Within “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”, Langston Hughes said of the racial struggle for black people that “this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America- this urge within the race toward white-ness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible” (1192). He identifies the struggle to succeed as being rooted as the struggle of being different. This implies that it is common thinking that the big hurdle is being different. He offers this anecdote: “One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once. “I want to be a poet- not a Negro poet”, meaning, I believe, “I want to write like a white poet”; meaning subconsciously, “I would like to be a white poet”; meaning behind that, “I would like to be white.” and I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself” (1192).

Of course being racially different from the majority of mainstream or successful poets will cause some anxiety, but I don’t agree with Hughes that saying that the racial mountain lies in this example. This exchange is rumored to be between Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, a poet
closely tied with the Harlem Renaissance. I feel that in the sentence “I want to be a poet- not a Negro poet” Cullen meant that he wanted to be defined by his work and not by his race. I will be the first to admit that Langston Hughes is a brilliant gifted writer and was blessed with a mind, I feel that the drive for Cullen was to be remembered for his poetry. For his words to transcend his
family, his hometown, and the blood that pumps through his veins. Cullen died young, living from 1903-1946 but is remembered for his work.

Building on Feminism: Gender Theory/Queer Theory

Buildingon Feminism: Gender Theory/Queer Theory
•Butler, excerpt from Gender Trouble (NATC, 2485-2502)
•Sedgwick, excerpts from Between Men and Epistemology of the Closet (NATC, 2432-45)

•Haraway, excerpt from A Manfesto for Cyborgs (NATC, 2266-99)

Can I get a quick definition?

“Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and Women's studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself. Heavily influenced by the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and Lauren Berlant, queer theory builds both upon feminist challenges to the idea that gender is part of the essential self and upon gay/lesbian studies' close examination of the socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities. Whereas gay/lesbian studies focused its inquiries into "natural" and "unnatural" behaviour with respect to homosexual behaviour, queer theory expands its focus to encompass any kind of sexual activity or identity that falls into normative and deviant categories.”

So let's apply it to La Femme!

Femme and butch lesbian identities date back to the early 20th century in the US, but it wasn’t until the 1940s and the rise of lesbian bar culture that butch-femme culture grew far more visible. By the 1950’s, the butch-femme model was so influential that lesbians felt compelled to identify as either femme or butch in order to participate in mainstream lesbian culture (Levitt et al. 99). Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, butch-femme dynamics remained prominent in lesbian communities and came to define popular understandings of lesbian identities and relationships in the U.S. Thus, for the majority of this time, femme-ininity was defined almost solely in relation to its counterpart and supposed opposite, butch. Femme was (and for some, still is) considered to be a feminine lesbian identity and gender presentation marked by docility. According to Elizabeth Galewski in “Figuring the Feminist Femme,” “Where the butch came to be lauded as the ‘visible,’ ‘public,’ and hence ‘political’ face of same-sex desire, the femme was implicitly conflated with weakness, passivity, and even complicity in the face of oppression” (186). Thus, not only were femmes perceived to be butches’ weaker, less visible counterparts; they were seen as less queer, less of a threat to heteronormativity and patriarchy in the public sphere.

Femme identities, cultures, and politics are critical to understandings of queerness in historical and contemporary US contexts, and yet they are too often rendered invisible in queer communities and discourses on queerness. When queer femme-ininity and femmes are acknowledged or represented, many are marginalized, dismissed, and/or deemed less queer (or not queer at all) because of their seemingly “straight” gender presentations. Other representations of queer femmes are overly simplistic and ignore the ways in which gender, sexuality, race, and other aspects of identity impact our unique constructions of femme-ininity. Nevertheless, femme remains a powerful and meaningful identity category, gender presentation, politic, and community for many queer and transgendered people today.

FEMINISM

Feminisms
•De Beauvoir, excerpt from The Second Sex (NATC, 1403-14)
•Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa" (NATC, 2035-56)
•Gilbert and Gubar, excerpt from The Madwoman in the Attic (NATC, 2021-34)

Simone de Beauvoir suggests that sexuality is oppressive and that while both genders are essential, they are not equal. A woman has a very specific role within the gender, and it is that of the master-slave relationship. Within the slave (feminine) aspect, another problem is that women cannot band together. Solidarity is difficult between women, which may contribute to the gender being suppressed. According to definition, “Feminist theory, which emerged from these feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender.”

With regards to the male to female relationship, de Beauvoir says that “And moreover woman is taught from adolescence to lie to men, to scheme, to be wily. In speaking to them she wears an artificial expression on her face; she is cautious, hypocritical, play-acting” (1270). She suggests that women are essentially trained to be submissive, to bottle their emotions, personalities, and their interests to intrigue men. It may have once been hiding admiration for reading or writing, but now it has evolved into silicone personalities. De Beauvoir also says that “the fact is that she would be quite embarrassed to decide what she is” (1269). The social pressure and stigma of
the male identity does not allow any allocation for the female identity. Women are meant to believe that they must be identified in contrast of what they are not, in this case, a man. It should be noted that “Some of the earlier forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle-class, educated perspectives. This led to the creation of ethnically-specific or multiculturalists forms of feminism.”Of course the well known stigma is that a man is aggressive, the alpha male. So, when women are pressed up against this concept, they become the opposite turning from subservient to independent.

Psychoanalysis & Text

PsychoanalysisI: Freudian Foundations
•Freud, all selections in NATC (913-56)
•Review Foucault, excerpts from The History of Sexuality in NATC
•Lacan, “The Mirror Stage” and “The Agency of the Letter” (NATC, 1278-1302)


Psychoanalytic theory builds upon the ideas of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), and his followers, such as Carl Jung (1875-1961), Ernest Jones (1879-1958), Melanie Klein (1882-1960), Joan Riviere (1883-1962) and, most importantly, Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). It can be used to analyze the characters within a literary text by examining their personality and mechanisms used to develop the material. Utilizing this method can yield useful clues such as symbols, actions and settings. To put it simply, Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism studies how the mind works and it is seen in ‘literature. It studies three minds in relation to the text which are, author, characters, and reader. “Freud’s theory replaced the idea of coherent and autonomous human self (which is a humanist idea) with the idea of human ego existing on the fringe of the all powerful Unconscious- the huge area of human self existing outside of human awareness.”

The theory is not without its critics, most notably from those who argue that it is the impact of society on the individual that matters in determining behavior, rather than inner psychic conflicts. Freud's analysis of human sexuality also has the tendency to be considered sexist and homophobic, though feminists will still draw from some of his conclusions. “The concepts of psychoanalysis can be deployed with reference to the narrative or poetic structure itself, without requiring access to the authorial psyche” (an interpretation motivated by Lacan's remark that the unconscious is structured like a language). “Freudian theory, in Lacanian interpretation, is chiefly about decentering or marginality of human self in relation to itself.”Or the founding texts of psychoanalysis may themselves be treated as literature, and re-read for the light cast by their formal qualities on their theoretical content (Freud's texts frequently resemble detective stories, or the archaeological narratives of which he was so fond).

New Historicism

NewHistoricism/Cultural Poetics/Cultural Studies
•Foucault, all selections in NATC (1615-70)
•Greenblatt, excerpt in NATC (2250-2254)
•Hall, “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies” (NATC, 1895-1910)

New Historicism has been defined as “the history of the text and the textuality of history.” Coined by Stephen Greenblatt around 1980, practitioners began utilizing this method (such as J.W. Lever and Jonathan Dollimore) to parallel the reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same time period. This method refuses to privilege literary text.

Using the New Historicism method, Greenblatt suggested that historical anecdotes are given within the text which can then be related to the time. This places the literary text within the frame of a non-literary text, allowing literature and history to occupy the same weight of emphasis of literary interpretation.

So what does Greenblatt mean when he uses the term “enabling presumptions”? The movement establishes itself upon four main arguments. The first is that literature is historical. Essentially
this means “that a literary work is not primarily the record of one mind’s attempt to solve certain formal problems and the need to find something to say; it is a social and cultural construct shaped by more than one consciousness.” The proper way to understand it, therefore, is through the culture and society that produced it. The second argument then is that literature is not a distinct category of human activity. “It must be assimilated to history, which means a particular vision of history.”

The third dispute suggests that “like works of literature, man himself is a social construct, the sloppy composition of social and political forces”—there is no such thing as a human nature that
transcends history. Renaissance man belongs inescapably and irretrievably to the Renaissance. There is no continuity between him and us; history is a series of "ruptures" between ages and men. Consequently, and lastly, the historian/ critic is trapped in his own "historicity." No one can
rise above his own social formations, his own ideological upbringing, in order to understand the past on its terms. A modern reader can never experience a text as its contemporaries experienced it. It becomes a parallel reading rather than a hierarchy. Given this fact, the best a modern historicist approach to
literature can hope to accomplish, according to Greenblatt, is "to use the
text as a basis for the reconstruction of an ideology."