Webliography Question 3

QUESTION: Judy Waczman argues that Donna Haraway's figure of a cyborg has taken on `a life of its own' in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing. In what ways has it been taken up by feminists?

Feminists have taken up Donna Haraway's figure of a cyborg primarily as a vehicle by which they can connect women to technology, a stereotypically male dominated area of growth. The following blogs, articles and reviews are examples of how the cyborg has become an important metaphor within feminst circles and how Haraway's manifesto inspired the change from feminsm to cyberfeminism.

Blauwkamp, J Krassas, N (2006), Should Feminists be Cyborgs? allacademic research. Available from: <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/3/8/8/5/p138854_index.html> [27 August 2008]
In Should Feminists be Cyborgs? Joan Blauwkamp and Nicole Krassas illustrate the level to which the cyborg principle is used by feminists. Particularly interesting is the illustration of the character Scully from the television show X-Files as a cyborg character in her position as both female and a scientist (Blauwkamp, Krassas 2006 p.5). This suggests the use of the cyborg figure in order to make a feminist reading of material, in this case a popular television show. They also uses the various movies and television shows of the Star Trek franchise to illustrate their points on the role of cyborgs in popular culture in comparison to Haraway's figure of the Cyborg (Blauwkamp, Krassas 2006). This analysis of the way cyborgs are analysed is useful in that it illustrates the degree to which the idea of the cyborg as introduced by Haraway has been taken up by feminists, and particularly how it affects their readings of other works.

Mondloch, K 2002 Reloading Cyberfeminsm.- Reload: Rethinking Women and Cyberculture - Book Review. BNET. Available from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_1_30/ai_89985963 [27 August 2008]
Katie Mondloch provides an overview of the history if cyberfeminsm, including Haraway, VNS Matrix and Sadie Plant as key figures in the development of cyberfeminsm. The book she is reviewing is a collection of women's cyberfiction and criticism. This illustrates a whole area of feminism heavily influenced by Haraway's cyborg, as feminism and the genre of science fiction are mixed, creating what the authors of Reload, Flanagan and Booth, refer to as women's cyberfiction. This article is useful as an illustration of one of the many ways Haraway's cyborg has become a part of feminist writing.

Pop Feminist 2008, Blogger. 8 June 2008. Pop Feminist: Blog. Available from: http://popfeminist.blogspot.com/2008/06/cyborg-feminism.html [27 August 2008]
This blog, and the movie clips contained with in it, illustrate the way in which the image of the cyborg is not only contained within the sphere of cyberfeminism but can also be found in other forms of feminism, in this instance `pop feminism'. The music clip of the Bjork song is used as an example of how the cyborg is represented in pop culture, and thus in pop feminism. Though the video clip actually contains androids created by other robots, rather than part machine/part human cyborgs, they break the barriors between human and machine through the emotion and love experienced by the two machines, who build the female androids as a way in which their `human' emotions can be expressed. This video clip is used as a celebration of female sexuality in the context of the pop feminist website, and therefore the female as a cyborg.


Volkart, Y 2002, The Cyberfeminist Fantasy and the Pleasure of the Cyborg. Available from: <http://www.obn.org/reading_room/writings/html/cyberfem_fantasy.html> [27 August 2008]
In Yvonne Volkart's article, Volkart explores the relationship between cyberfeminism, Donna Haraway and the cyborg. This article is especially interesting because it labels Haraway's `A Cyborg Manifesto' (Volkart 2002) as the turning point where feminism opened up into cyberfeminism. It describes that the `utopian ideology of women's liberation' (Volkart 2002) is to the Cyberfeminists the point where liberation is based in body and gender, but this body has been changed so that while it is not a `new' body, it is not the same body as it once was (Volkart 2002). Volkart continues by illustrating several examples of places where the cyborg has been used by feminists in different mediums, other than academic writing, such as Kristen Lucas' net-based project `Involuntary Reception', a fictional video blog, and the novel by Kathy Acker `Empire of the Senseless' (1988) (Volkart 2002). This article illustrates some of the impacts Haraway's `Cyborg Manifesto' has had on the feminist community, and in particular in working to shift focus to cyberfeminism.

Volkart, Y Unruly Bodies. The Effect Body As a Place of Resistance. Media Art Net. Available from: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/cyborg_bodies/unruly_bodies/ [27 August 2008]
This article explores the relationship between the feminine concept of `unruly' and the cyborg in relation to art. It also makes clear that the idea of the body as a `battlefield' is not a new one unique to the concept of the cyborg, but is instead one that was a basis for feminist writing in 1970s. Feminism adapted the new concept of the cyborg as introduced by Haraway to ideas that were around previously. Volkart also makes a strong connection between the `unruly', the feminine and the cyborg. She discusses how the idea of `unruly' is tied intrinsically to feminity, and thus the idea of an `unruly' cyborg that breaks down traditional dichotomies is suggested to be female. This strengthens the bond between feminism and the cyborg and supports Haraway's figure of a cyborg as a symbol for feminism, and in particular cyberfeminism.

Feminism, and cyberfeminism in particular, owes many of its current ideas and positions on how women and technology are related to Donna Haraway's figure of a cyborg. Volkart describes Haraway's `Manifesto' as the turning point between feminism and cyberfeminism (2002) and numerous other writers, photographers, directors, etc. have used the idea of the cyborg to illustrate the complex nature between women, technology and the world as a whole. The various manners in which Haraway's figure of a cyborg is taken up by feminists is clearly shown in these online sources.