Annnnn's Critical Annotated Webliography

Guiding Question 4: Is a cyborg queer? Discuss critical thinking on the intersections between sexuality and technology.
1.
Balsamo, Anne. Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999. Google Books. Google. Web. 14 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=lkr11mXPYKEC&lpg=PP1&dq=gendered%20cyborg&hl=zh-TW&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false>.

In the chapter “Reading Cyborgs, Writing Feminist: Reading the Body in Contemporary Culture”, ideas of authorities like Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, Ruth Bleier and other feminist are quoted in order to demonstrate the differences between the technological cyborg and we human by re-reading both our bodies and cyborg’s bodies.

In the very first part, the chapter told us about the history of cyborg and defined the term “cybernetic organism” (which is generally called “Cyborg”), as well as introduced other appellations of cyborg. After that, since some feminists, included Foucault, contributed to framework that interpreted the “body” as a cultural text, and therefore, in the later part of the chapter, 4 central thoughts by Foucault were used to distinguish the unlikeness of the body of cyborg and human. The four ideas are, namely, the hysterization of the female body; the construction of homosexuality; the creation of distinctions among infant, child, and adolescent sexualities and the establishment of a discourse of perversion. As there are many questions and argues between the difference between human and cyborg bodies and sexualities, I think these four ideas are quite useful for the elaboration the answer of one of the guiding question – the intersections between sexuality and technology since the “body” of cyborg is always a critical point when discussing the difference between human and cyborg.

2.
Kreps, David. "Cyborgs and Gender." Cyborgs: Cyborgism, Performance and Society. Salford: University of Salford, 2003. 65-66. Google Books. Google. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=VC8MaNqVmbYC&pg=PA65&dq=Cyborgs+and+Gender&hl=zh-TW&ei=YdeFTe_BHIXBcdTttZUD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Cyborgs%20and%20Gender&f=false>.

The “gender” of the cyborg is discussed in the chapter “Cyborgs and Gender”. Different sayings about the gender of cyborg are introduced. For example, for a number of authorities, it is broadly believed that cyborg is considered as female, and it is stated that “The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience that changes what counts as women’s experience in the late twentieth century.” They believe what the cyborg experienced had effects on the women in late 20^th century. Others argued that how the cyborg looks like in some film and fictions, like artificial eyes and razor-shaped claws, made it as an image of female.

However, one very crucial but opposite concept mentioned by Donna Haraway is that, in her mind, for the cyborg, there has no origin story in the Western sense. This makes cyborg becomes an abstract thing to human since every single human is supposed to have a sexuality when we born, moreover, there is no “history” of them for us to study about. And thus, without a “natural” sexuality is given, in the contemporary cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world. This is a useful theory for me to deal with the guiding question about the sexuality of cyborg as the sexuality of cyborg is always a debatable topic for scholars to argue for.

3.
Kirkup, Gill. "Postmodern Identity: the Social Construction of Subjectivity." The Gendered Cyborg: a Reader. London: Routledge in Association with the Open University, 2000. 153-54.Google Books. Google. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=7FaUVl6H4SYC&pg=PA153&dq=Postmodern+Identity:+the+Social+Construction+of+Subjectivity&hl=zhTW&ei=VNiFTennHs2ecZzoiJAD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Postmodern%20Identity%3A%20the%20Social%20Construction%20of%20Subjectivity&f=false>.

The main idea wanted to bring out in the chapter “Postmodern identity: the social construction of subjectivity” is that the concept of “self” and “body”. According to the author, under various social interactions as well as communications, both cyborg and women are concurrently symbolically and biologically produced and reproduced. Feminists argued that the “multiple dimensions” of female identity: they pointed out that for a normal woman, she is appeared as two forms at the same time, that is the social-symbolic construction— a matter of ideology, as well as a physical body—a matter of materiality. On the other hand, for the cyborg, the feminists claimed that if “it” is possible to appear as an image like a normal women, which has both ideological and material aspects (or call it as having both human identity as well as technological reality), the cyborg is more or less regarded as a woman since it could be seen as having both physiological and biological parts that a normal woman has. 

Moreover, in the latter part of this chapter, many movements of the feminists are mentioned so as to show if there is any effect on the “female identity” of the cyborg. The concept of “individualism” as well as “re-thinking of subjectivity” which are the mainstream postmodernism theories are introduced to discuss the identity of the cyborg.

4.O'Riordan, Kate, and Phillips David J. "Queer Theories and Cybersubject: Interesting Figures."Queer Online: Media Technology & Sexuality. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 13-31.Google Books. Google. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=c30mXS56jQMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=technology+and+sexuality&hl=zh-TW&ei=ofKATd7LGcelcJi1uegG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false>.

The chapter “Queer theories and Cybersubject: Interesting figures” discussed the relationship between the terms “cyber” and “queer”. “Cyber subjects”, are always linked to computers, Webpages, hacking et cetera. While for “Queer study”, it is always linked to the aspects of the practices or identification with sex, desires activism and so forth. However, in this chapter, the author tried to examine the intersection between the cyber subject and the queer and see how they interact with each other and how they affect each other.  

To demonstrate the relationship between the cyber subjects and queer, according to Maren Hartmann, it is argued that all kinds of technologies come with attendant of utopias. Because of this, it can be seen that there are intersections of queer and cyber subjetcs, what is more, the intersection of two promissory discourses, would unfold through utopian thinking about technological futures. To answer the guiding question that asked to think critically on the intersections between sexuality and technology, theories of Maren Hartmann seems useful and helpful. Many other productions like “The Birth of the Cyberqueer” by Donald Mortons and “Cyberqueer” by Nina Wakeford are also mentioned to support the author’s view. 

5.

Muri, Allison. "He Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction." The Enlightenment Cyborg: a History of Communications and Control in the Human Machine, 1660-1830. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2007. 166-69. Google Books. Google. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=oG21cTO7o2YC&pg=PA168&dq=male+and+female+Cyborg&hl=zh-TW&ei=TgCBTbnILNC8cbG22PwG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=male%20and%20female%20Cyborg&f=false>.

Whether a cyborg possesses its own desire about sex, and its “function” or “ability” of reproduction were examined in the chapter “The Woman-Machine: Techno-lust and Techno-reproduction”.

Like many other scholars, Allison Muri, the author of this book also mentioned the terms “female cyborg” and “female machine”. She discovered that in the late 20^th century, there are more and more productions like books and films cauterized the female cyborg as two main versions: the first one is coldly rational and highly sexualized or even fetishized machine; and the second one is a representation, which with a terrible image, of the disembodies and independently reproducing organic- mechanical womb. Both these 2 images of female cyborg are argued that to be fulfilling the male.

A short story “The Ship Who Sang” by Anne McCaffrey was used as an example demonstrate how the female cyborg was thinking about (it should be the opinion of McCaffrey and she wanted to use the cyborg to voice her idea out). An impressed dialogue from Helva, the female cyborg in the story is that, she told her master that she was not interested to reproduce any offspring of her own since she did not think that it is necessary. Though many authorities use woman to compare with cyborg, saying there are some many similarities between them… What tell us here is that the most basic “responsibility” could never be mentioned in the same breath.