The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader / Edition 1

by Fiona Hovenden, Linda Janes, Gill Kirkup, Kathryn Woodward

Overview

The Gendered Cyborg explores the relationship between representation, technoscience and gender, through the metaphor of the cyborg. The contributors argue that the figure of the cyborg offers ways of thinking about the relationship between culture and technology, people and machines which disrupt the power of science to enfore the categories through which we think about being human: male and female. Taking inspiration from Donna Haraway's groundbreaking Manifesto for Cyborgs, the articles consider how the cyborg has been used in cultural representation from reproductive technology to sci-fi, and question whether the cyborg is as powerful a symbol as is often claimed. The different sections of the reader explore: * the construction of gender categories through science
* the interraction of technoscience and gender in contemporary science fiction film such as Bladerunner and the Alien series
* debates around modern reproductive technology such as ultrasound scans and IVF, assessing their benefits and constraints for women
* issues relating to artificial intelligence and the internet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415220910
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/30/1999
Series:	D857 Gender, Technology and Representa
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gill Kirkup is Senior Lecturer in Educational Technology, Linda Janes is Staff Tutor in Sociology, Dr Kathryn Woodward is Staff Tutor in Sociology, and Dr Fiona Hovenden is IT consultant at the Open University.

Table of Contents

One: Representing gender in technoscience; Introduction to Part One; 1.1: Taxonomy for Human Beings; 1.2: Race and Gender: The Role of Analogy in Science; 1.3: A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s; 1.4: Envisioning Cyborg Bodies: Notes From Current Research; 1.5: Between Monsters, Goddesses and Cyborgs: Feminist Confrontations With Science; Two: Alien m/others: representing the feminine in science fiction film; Introduction to Part Two; 2.1: Monstrous Mothers; 2.2: Technophilia: Technology, Representation, and the Feminine; 2.3: Alien and the Monstrous-Feminine; 2.4: Postfuturism; 2.5: Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism; Three: Representing reproduction: reproducing representation; Introduction to Part Three; 3.1: Foetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction; 3.2: Feminist Approaches to Science, Medicine and Technology; 3.3: (M)other Discourses; 3.4: The Virtual Speculum in the New World Order 1; Four: Refractions (women, technology and cyborgs); Introduction to Part Four; 4.1: When Our Lips Speak Together 1; 4.2: On the Matrix: Cyberfeminist Simulations; 4.3: Feminist AI Projects and Cyberfutures; 4.4: Gender and the Landscapes of Computing in an Internet Café; 4.5: New Technologies of Race

Editorial Reviews

'...issues dealt with in a variety of contexts, and styles; from the poetic to the scientific by way of the intellectually rigorous and stopping off at the mildly surreal along the way. This makes the book very approachable for the target audience of Masters students, and also for undergraduates.' - Fin McMorran, University of Northumbria.

Undoubtedly there is plenty of interest in this book on the role of science and technology in women's lives.' - Alexandra Murrell, The Feminist Library, 2001

From the Publisher