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A Cyborg Manifesto
In "A Cyborg Manifesto" Donna Haraway criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly its emphasis on identity, rather than affinity. She uses the metaphor of a cyborg in order to construct a postmodern feminism that moves beyond dualisms and the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics.
88 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1985
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About the author
Donna J. Haraway
73 books1,207 followersDonna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States. She is a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies, described in the early 1990s as a "feminist, rather loosely a postmodernist". Haraway is the author of numerous foundational books and essays that bring together questions of science and feminism, such as "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" (1985) and "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective". Additionally, for her contributions to the intersection of information technology and feminist theory, Haraway is widely cited in works related to Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Her Situated Knowledges and Cyborg Manifesto publications in particular, have sparked discussion within the HCI community regarding framing the positionality from which research and systems are designed. She is also a leading scholar in contemporary ecofeminism, associated with post-humanism and new materialism movements. Her work criticizes anthropocentrism, emphasizes the self-organizing powers of nonhuman processes, and explores dissonant relations between those processes and cultural practices, rethinking sources of ethics.
Haraway has taught Women's Studies and the History of Science at the University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins University. Haraway's works have contributed to the study of both human-machine and human-animal relations. Her works have sparked debate in primatology, philosophy, and developmental biology. Haraway participated in a collaborative exchange with the feminist theorist Lynn Randolph from 1990 to 1996. Their engagement with specific ideas relating to feminism, technoscience, political consciousness, and other social issues, formed the images and narrative of Haraway's book Modest_Witness for which she received the Society for Social Studies of Science's (4S) Ludwik Fleck Prize in 1999. In 2000, Haraway was awarded the Society for Social Studies of Science's John Desmond Bernal Prize for her distinguished contributions to the field of science and technology studies. Haraway serves on the advisory board for numerous academic journals, including differences, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Contemporary Women's Writing, and Environmental Humanities.
Haraway has taught Women's Studies and the History of Science at the University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins University. Haraway's works have contributed to the study of both human-machine and human-animal relations. Her works have sparked debate in primatology, philosophy, and developmental biology. Haraway participated in a collaborative exchange with the feminist theorist Lynn Randolph from 1990 to 1996. Their engagement with specific ideas relating to feminism, technoscience, political consciousness, and other social issues, formed the images and narrative of Haraway's book Modest_Witness for which she received the Society for Social Studies of Science's (4S) Ludwik Fleck Prize in 1999. In 2000, Haraway was awarded the Society for Social Studies of Science's John Desmond Bernal Prize for her distinguished contributions to the field of science and technology studies. Haraway serves on the advisory board for numerous academic journals, including differences, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Contemporary Women's Writing, and Environmental Humanities.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 396 reviews
February 19, 2013
I read this from a dis/ability theory and technoculture theory perspective. From a dis/ability theory perspective, Haraway is extremely problematic, as she fetishizes the metaphorical and physical notions of the "hybrid" body and all manners of "prostheses." People who actually use prosthetics, orthotics, or "machine-matter" in order to live their day to day lives do not, in fact, see themselves as "cyborgs" (or at least, very few do), but as human dis/abled people (in whatever kind of disability or non-disability they personally prefer to identify).
The problem with Haraway's cyborg manifesto from a dis/ability perspective, is that she does not approach notions of abjected bodies OTHER THAN those determined "female" (which in terms of a gender theory perspective, is rather simplistic and essentialist). Haraway does not appreciate or discuss how our bodies and identities are socially, culturally, and even technologically constructed in order to uphold certain norms and ideals. She speaks of technology and hybridity, in metaphor and actuality, as almost an escape from cultural expectations of the body, or at least, holding a kind of resistance to such exectations. In many dis/ability perspectives, however, Haraway's view of technology and the human and animal body merely upholds and maintains current constructions of the body as notoriously non-disabled, non-abject, without pain, and without suffering. I see Haraway's description of the future feminist cyborg body (or her metaphor of such a hybrid in theory) as upholding certain bodily norms and notions surrounding post-human theory regarding the "technological evolution" of the body.
However, I also love her creative reading of gender and technology in this piece of writing. There is so much to love and dislike within this work. No great work creates such wide cultural, theoretical, and artistic discourse without making some very problematic and potentially utopic/dystopic statements. Haraway poses a technological form of feminist resistance, which is not to be taken lightly, or uncritically from only ONE theoretical perspective.
The problem with Haraway's cyborg manifesto from a dis/ability perspective, is that she does not approach notions of abjected bodies OTHER THAN those determined "female" (which in terms of a gender theory perspective, is rather simplistic and essentialist). Haraway does not appreciate or discuss how our bodies and identities are socially, culturally, and even technologically constructed in order to uphold certain norms and ideals. She speaks of technology and hybridity, in metaphor and actuality, as almost an escape from cultural expectations of the body, or at least, holding a kind of resistance to such exectations. In many dis/ability perspectives, however, Haraway's view of technology and the human and animal body merely upholds and maintains current constructions of the body as notoriously non-disabled, non-abject, without pain, and without suffering. I see Haraway's description of the future feminist cyborg body (or her metaphor of such a hybrid in theory) as upholding certain bodily norms and notions surrounding post-human theory regarding the "technological evolution" of the body.
However, I also love her creative reading of gender and technology in this piece of writing. There is so much to love and dislike within this work. No great work creates such wide cultural, theoretical, and artistic discourse without making some very problematic and potentially utopic/dystopic statements. Haraway poses a technological form of feminist resistance, which is not to be taken lightly, or uncritically from only ONE theoretical perspective.
August 19, 2022
Listen, I’m all for occupying the interstices between fiction and reality, that subluminal space is essentially where I live all the time. But I’m both smart and brave enough to admit that I’m delusional and psychotic. Haraway suggests the cyborg as an alternate identity that transcends racial, cultural, gender, and class boundaries. But who are we kidding here?
Haraway identifies irony as a process through which meanings are made, unmade, and remade. She aims to use irony as an instrument of subversion, using which the dominant hegemonical order can be prised open. The very embodiment of the cyborg identity is a celebration of blasphemy, and therefore it is not without its allure. I would have been all for the cyborg identity, especially since it goes against the western metaphysical tradition and blurs the lines between the public and the private. It breaks away from the idea of euro-centric humanness, they don’t call cyberfeminism post-human for nothing.
The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self.
But, the cyborg cannot re-member. Memory as a capacity is rejected by it. Memory is an integral part of what makes us human. Would I like to be a cyborg? Yes, I would love to. But I’m delusional and psychotic and the cyborg identity is pure science fiction, far removed from the reality we face every day. It has no place in personal or collective political action. Given that Haraway has an extensive background in science, her technophilia is understandable. Nevertheless, it’s taken too far here, as if science has ever had an existence independent of the culture it inhabits. Just put in some dialectical materialism, please.
Haraway identifies irony as a process through which meanings are made, unmade, and remade. She aims to use irony as an instrument of subversion, using which the dominant hegemonical order can be prised open. The very embodiment of the cyborg identity is a celebration of blasphemy, and therefore it is not without its allure. I would have been all for the cyborg identity, especially since it goes against the western metaphysical tradition and blurs the lines between the public and the private. It breaks away from the idea of euro-centric humanness, they don’t call cyberfeminism post-human for nothing.
The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self.
But, the cyborg cannot re-member. Memory as a capacity is rejected by it. Memory is an integral part of what makes us human. Would I like to be a cyborg? Yes, I would love to. But I’m delusional and psychotic and the cyborg identity is pure science fiction, far removed from the reality we face every day. It has no place in personal or collective political action. Given that Haraway has an extensive background in science, her technophilia is understandable. Nevertheless, it’s taken too far here, as if science has ever had an existence independent of the culture it inhabits. Just put in some dialectical materialism, please.
February 13, 2014
In this project I've read books I like, books I didn't like, books that went on too long, and books that I wish never ended. But the unifying theme was that I mostly understood the books I was reading. That streak ended today. I literally was boggled by A Cyborg Manifesto. It was just short of reading a book in a foreign language. In fact, it was probably harder because all of the words should make sense! Each word in the sentence I knew the meaning of, but when put together, I lost all sense of meaning. And it's worse than Finnegan's Wake because these sentences SHOULD make sense! "Their engineers are sun-worshippers mediating a new scientific revolution associated with the night dream of post-industrial society." Yeah, I don't know. This whole essay was just me reading a series of words independent of one another, like I was a child reading for the first time.
Read
February 11, 2016nearly inaccessibly dense, hyper-utopic post-gender manifesto that's ultimately intriguing/rewarding if you're willing to hurt your brain to push through it. would love to be a cyborg.
May 19, 2017
Honestly, I enjoyed reading *about* this far more than I actually enjoyed reading it. An erratic stranger interrupted me at a coffee shop as I was quietly flipping through this, trying to make sense of it, in order to tell me how much he loved it. "A postmodern masterpiece," he gushed. "An ironic manifesto. Does it get any better than that?" My terrified mind immediately cowered and went on the defensive. "Please god, don't make me have to say anything about this that makes any sense," I thought. Instead I just smiled and nodded like I agreed completely.
This was written at a moment when theorists were priding themselves on being as dense and jargon-laden and impenetrable as possible. Her thesis about celebrating the impossibility of real boundaries and instead wallowing in the blurriness between categories is certainly interesting, but she never gives any clear picture of what that might actually look like in practice. At the end, once I'd finally read some supplemental material that helped me to make sense of what she was getting at, I found myself regretful at having bothered at all to read it from beginning to end. It's an important text to be aware of, but just like Finnegan's Wake or the Bible, maybe it's not necessary to read it from cover to cover.
This was written at a moment when theorists were priding themselves on being as dense and jargon-laden and impenetrable as possible. Her thesis about celebrating the impossibility of real boundaries and instead wallowing in the blurriness between categories is certainly interesting, but she never gives any clear picture of what that might actually look like in practice. At the end, once I'd finally read some supplemental material that helped me to make sense of what she was getting at, I found myself regretful at having bothered at all to read it from beginning to end. It's an important text to be aware of, but just like Finnegan's Wake or the Bible, maybe it's not necessary to read it from cover to cover.
September 21, 2013
New detailed review to follow.
A seemingly short (43 pages) but immensely dense tract on the figure of the cyborg in 20th century sci-fi, the work examines from the socialist-feminist point-of-view the ontological and political aspects of the presence of a transgressive creature such as the cyborg. Analysing literary and cinematic works that depict cyborgs, Haraway emphasizes on the nature of a possible critical framework that seeks to harmonize the spectre of horror that haunts the present world. Haunts - because the cyborg is neither human, nor machine, and yet both - it lacks the metanarrative of genesis and family, yet longs for community - it is not only post-gender, but also post-human, threatening the hierarchy of man and machine - and stretching it further, the female cyborg also defying the hierarchy of man and women and male-cyborgs and female-cyborgs.
Very dense and difficult, requiring multiple readings and spanning ontological, capitalistic and patriarchal concerns, it is brilliant nevertheless.
A seemingly short (43 pages) but immensely dense tract on the figure of the cyborg in 20th century sci-fi, the work examines from the socialist-feminist point-of-view the ontological and political aspects of the presence of a transgressive creature such as the cyborg. Analysing literary and cinematic works that depict cyborgs, Haraway emphasizes on the nature of a possible critical framework that seeks to harmonize the spectre of horror that haunts the present world. Haunts - because the cyborg is neither human, nor machine, and yet both - it lacks the metanarrative of genesis and family, yet longs for community - it is not only post-gender, but also post-human, threatening the hierarchy of man and machine - and stretching it further, the female cyborg also defying the hierarchy of man and women and male-cyborgs and female-cyborgs.
Very dense and difficult, requiring multiple readings and spanning ontological, capitalistic and patriarchal concerns, it is brilliant nevertheless.
December 28, 2020
Buscar un lenguaje diverso, no unificado.
February 22, 2013
"This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia. It is an imagination of a feminist speaking in tongues to strike fear into the circuits of the supersavers of the new right. It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are bound in the spire dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess."
May 2, 2021
It is hard to comprehend this book. Readers must have a lot of theoretical background to even have a chance to get her ideas. However, the more I was trying to understand, the more impressed I was. This feminist manifesto is so different from the feminist works I have read until now. It is refreshing to read something completely new.
To be able to imagine a gender-free society is liberating and extremely feminist. To aim for "regeneration" and "reconstruction" instead of "rebirth" might be the solution for political freedom, expression and a new technological world that is open to polymorphism and real unity. Haraway wants to reconceptualize social feminism whose centrality lies to a big extent in reproduction and psychoanalysis. A post-gender world does not need all that. And if we are not in constant search of completion in the sense of "reproduction", we will also learn how to be content with partial and polymorphous identities. Haraway's criticism of modern feminism and identity politics was so compelling!
Western tradition and history is so focused on our "uniqueness" and an oppressive, mythical pretechnological past. Haraway "would rather be a cyborg than a goddess". This is how she dismantles the patriarchal and religious preachings about nature/gender/morality and so on, but also the feminist intellectuality that tries to uplift women by suggesting we have a unique relationship to nature (Mother Earth) and spirituality. Haraway sees freedom in science and technology and our connection to machines; she believes in cyborgs, in hybrids. If we are cyborgs, all concepts about Gods, gender, race, class, materiality, nature, consciousness, identity (..) will die-together with our preconditioned illusion of exceptionality. It is a way out of all the dualisms we have learned so far.
Maybe this is how we can move Feminism forward. Many think that her work is rather dystopian but personally, I find it to be extremely relevant to the modern age. Information technology and cybernetics is a reality; an interesting, pleasant but also a dangerous one for you cannot trust the cyborg. They are the "illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism".
"The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us."
To be able to imagine a gender-free society is liberating and extremely feminist. To aim for "regeneration" and "reconstruction" instead of "rebirth" might be the solution for political freedom, expression and a new technological world that is open to polymorphism and real unity. Haraway wants to reconceptualize social feminism whose centrality lies to a big extent in reproduction and psychoanalysis. A post-gender world does not need all that. And if we are not in constant search of completion in the sense of "reproduction", we will also learn how to be content with partial and polymorphous identities. Haraway's criticism of modern feminism and identity politics was so compelling!
Western tradition and history is so focused on our "uniqueness" and an oppressive, mythical pretechnological past. Haraway "would rather be a cyborg than a goddess". This is how she dismantles the patriarchal and religious preachings about nature/gender/morality and so on, but also the feminist intellectuality that tries to uplift women by suggesting we have a unique relationship to nature (Mother Earth) and spirituality. Haraway sees freedom in science and technology and our connection to machines; she believes in cyborgs, in hybrids. If we are cyborgs, all concepts about Gods, gender, race, class, materiality, nature, consciousness, identity (..) will die-together with our preconditioned illusion of exceptionality. It is a way out of all the dualisms we have learned so far.
Maybe this is how we can move Feminism forward. Many think that her work is rather dystopian but personally, I find it to be extremely relevant to the modern age. Information technology and cybernetics is a reality; an interesting, pleasant but also a dangerous one for you cannot trust the cyborg. They are the "illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism".
"The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us."
June 15, 2021
Un libro complesso, difficile da riassumere. Il cyborg (ibrido di macchina e organismo che appartiene tanto alla realtà sociale quanto alla finzione) è il superamento del dualismo organico e gerarchico che ha strutturato il discorso dell’“Occidente” da Aristotele in poi. Le dicotomie tra mente e corpo, tra sé e non-sé, animale e umano, organismo e macchina, pubblico e privato, natura e cultura, uomini e donne, primitivo e civilizzato, sono tutte messe ideologicamente in discussione. Il cyborg è una sorta di sé postmoderno collettivo e personale, disassemblato e riassemblato. È il sé che le femministe devono elaborare. "Le tecnologie della comunicazione e le biotecnologie sono gli strumenti principali per ricostruire i nostri corpi. Questi strumenti incorporano e impongono nuove relazioni sociali per le donne di tutto il mondo...che si esplicano attraverso la coalizione, basata sull’affinità, e non sull’identità." Le molteplici differenze che distinguono le donne tra di loro sono, per Haraway, una fonte di grande ricchezza politica, che va utilizzata a fondo.
Illuminante il capitolo finale sull'immunologia mai così attuale nella lotta contro il virus. Il modello biologico del sistema immunitario come campo di battaglia per la difesa del sé e della propria identità a cui attingono simbioticamente le culture militari e i pianificatori strategici di videogames. Ciò che conta è l'individuo. Tutto il resto è “non-sé” e suscita una reazione di difesa se i confini vengono attraversati. "La vita è una finestra della vulnerabilità; sembra un peccato chiuderla...Immunità equivale a invulnerabilità, il sé come fortezza difesa, ed extra-terrestrialismo...La perfezione di un sé totalmente difeso, “vittorioso”, è una fantasia raggelante che collega l’ameba fagocitotica e l’uomo che viaggia verso la luna nella cannibalizzazione della terra in una teleologia evoluzionista di extra-terrestrialismo post-apocalittico." Sarà un caso che stessi leggendo La Trilogia Galattica di Asimov in contemporanea?
Illuminante il capitolo finale sull'immunologia mai così attuale nella lotta contro il virus. Il modello biologico del sistema immunitario come campo di battaglia per la difesa del sé e della propria identità a cui attingono simbioticamente le culture militari e i pianificatori strategici di videogames. Ciò che conta è l'individuo. Tutto il resto è “non-sé” e suscita una reazione di difesa se i confini vengono attraversati. "La vita è una finestra della vulnerabilità; sembra un peccato chiuderla...Immunità equivale a invulnerabilità, il sé come fortezza difesa, ed extra-terrestrialismo...La perfezione di un sé totalmente difeso, “vittorioso”, è una fantasia raggelante che collega l’ameba fagocitotica e l’uomo che viaggia verso la luna nella cannibalizzazione della terra in una teleologia evoluzionista di extra-terrestrialismo post-apocalittico." Sarà un caso che stessi leggendo La Trilogia Galattica di Asimov in contemporanea?
September 22, 2021
i never wanna read this ever again
Read
June 5, 2022maybe the cyborg is the friend we made along the way
August 13, 2025
Cyborg is our ontology...politics.
Embodying and embroiled in the immanent schemes of the world, the cyborg is ontologically destitute. A sieve through which flashes of information run through. This destitution though is not about exhaustion...it's about movement and action. It has no origins because the dreams of an oral symbiotic utopia for eg is one of exhaustion; wanting to be whole; to collapse and shatter and forget the parts you're made of. Become dust. Basically what Klossowski and Nietzsche said much more interestingly about consciousness being more about depletion of energy than self illuminating light of truth and reason. The humanist enlightenment line of thought has also arisen from this exhaustion. Cyborg is born of this lineage but subverts it. It has no hankering for wholeness and therefore no truck with exhaustion.
The cyborg is personally and politically polluted by technology. The schizo-psychotic subjectival lines in the 20th-21st century leave no hope for organic wholeness. Progressiveness then is measured not by tying the noose of identity around your neck but by accepting the fact that you are of this filth and there's no salvation for you in the form of wholeness except that which you yourself repurpose and forge creatively. One is too few, and two is only one possibility. You are of this world. Dig a hole. Regenerate.
That's all this manifesto is about. None of the additional fluff really adds anything concrete to any of the conversations she claims to be partaking in. Skip this. Read Deleuze's essay on societies of control, Sadie Plant, Rosi Braidotti instead. Maybe even Byung-Chul Han but not this.
2.5
Embodying and embroiled in the immanent schemes of the world, the cyborg is ontologically destitute. A sieve through which flashes of information run through. This destitution though is not about exhaustion...it's about movement and action. It has no origins because the dreams of an oral symbiotic utopia for eg is one of exhaustion; wanting to be whole; to collapse and shatter and forget the parts you're made of. Become dust. Basically what Klossowski and Nietzsche said much more interestingly about consciousness being more about depletion of energy than self illuminating light of truth and reason. The humanist enlightenment line of thought has also arisen from this exhaustion. Cyborg is born of this lineage but subverts it. It has no hankering for wholeness and therefore no truck with exhaustion.
The cyborg is personally and politically polluted by technology. The schizo-psychotic subjectival lines in the 20th-21st century leave no hope for organic wholeness. Progressiveness then is measured not by tying the noose of identity around your neck but by accepting the fact that you are of this filth and there's no salvation for you in the form of wholeness except that which you yourself repurpose and forge creatively. One is too few, and two is only one possibility. You are of this world. Dig a hole. Regenerate.
That's all this manifesto is about. None of the additional fluff really adds anything concrete to any of the conversations she claims to be partaking in. Skip this. Read Deleuze's essay on societies of control, Sadie Plant, Rosi Braidotti instead. Maybe even Byung-Chul Han but not this.
2.5
Read
January 5, 2022Did I understand this? No, not at all :) I say this affectionately
March 3, 2019
An interesting postmodern attack on the idealised notions of the body. Through dense layers of theory, stacked on top of each other like an angel cake, Haraway offers not much in the way of a manifesto, at least in the prescriptive sense, but more of an undermining of much of the ideology of the body and it's relationships to politics.
Whilst this is an important addition to theoretical Sociolgy and Disability Studies, a more prescriptive stance and a more coherent manner of getting ideas across would be much more desirable.
Whilst this is an important addition to theoretical Sociolgy and Disability Studies, a more prescriptive stance and a more coherent manner of getting ideas across would be much more desirable.
September 11, 2020
Ne bih da dužim puno o ovoj knjizi ali mislim da joj ideje nisu revolucionarne, bilo je pomena o tome i ranije, a i prakse, s obzirom da je tekst iz 1985.godine. Dalje, koncept manifesta mislim da je promašen jer ga je ograničila samo na sebe i svoja zapažanja o aktivnim dešavanjima na Zapadu, ali nije objedinila misao, i previše pretenciozno piše. Da nemam pozadinu u jeziku mislim da bih se rasplakala nad koricama. Sam akcenat na odnos muško/žensko je u međustepenu i zanimljiv je, ali u svetu gde vladaju razlike, otuđenosti i segregacija, uvoditi još jednu kroz model kiborga samo još naglašava taj problem.
March 16, 2024
I find it hypocritical to suggest that the category "woman" is overwhelmingly if not entirely defined by patriarchal language, then proceed to condemn feminists who seek to reduce industries founded on the subjugation and abuse of women. I find that feminists like Haraway pick and choose when that sexual/gendered history matters, and when it doesn't. This weirdly and overly subjective argumentation ends up appearing to me not only as unconvincing, but as ridiculous. Still, this essay is an important read if you are interested in feminist discourse and the fascinating influence of capitalism and technology on social norms, structures, attitudes, and ideals.
January 19, 2021
Texto feminista fundamental y premonitorio. Escrito en los primeros 90, conecta los inicios de la sociedad de la información y del control con la disolución de las dicotomías dominantes entre naturaleza y sociedad, ser humano y máquina o masculino y femenino. Sus apreciaciones sobre la importancia que adquirirán las investigaciones genéticas o las enfermedades víricas (eran los tiempos del sida) adquieren nueva luz en la perspectiva actual. También son muy interesantes sus referencias a la literatura de ciencia-ficción.
June 6, 2023
Tirando i fili della questione sposo tutto quello che dice, il problema è che spesso e volentieri mi sembra di legger delle supercazzole. Non so se è un problema di mie conoscenze pregresse, di traduzione o se è lei che scrive in sta maniera arzigogolata.
Mi verrebbe quasi da dire "peccato".
Aggiungo rece
https://lagiustizia.net/manifesto-cyb...
Mi verrebbe quasi da dire "peccato".
Aggiungo rece
https://lagiustizia.net/manifesto-cyb...
Want to read
August 21, 2021non ci sto capendo una mazza.
April 11, 2020
Almost any feminist worth her salt has this work listed in the index of whatever feminist work that is published. And since I want to be a feminist "worth my own salt", I attempted to read this book. I got through five pages and realized that in order to understand Haraway's work, I have to understand, (and don't):
Marxism
Taylorism - who is this? Taylor Swift was not even born yet.
Ontology
Teleology
post modernism
dialectical materialism
pre-oedipal symbiosis
abstract individuation
humanism
The myth of original unity
a phallic mother
And these are just the first five pages.
Haraway writes about cyborgs, but she uses a cyborg's complex code (language) to communicate ... ??? ..."an argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction." Meaning the cyborg's construction.
There is just too much that she expects of the reader to understand and to have mastery over before reading this essay. I don't even know who Taylor is or what a phallic mother is.
Maybe I need to just pretend to have read "A cyborg manifesto" so that other feminists think I'm a good feminist. But in reality, this feminist didn't understand shit or shinola about what Haraway wrote here.
Marxism
Taylorism - who is this? Taylor Swift was not even born yet.
Ontology
Teleology
post modernism
dialectical materialism
pre-oedipal symbiosis
abstract individuation
humanism
The myth of original unity
a phallic mother
And these are just the first five pages.
Haraway writes about cyborgs, but she uses a cyborg's complex code (language) to communicate ... ??? ..."an argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction." Meaning the cyborg's construction.
There is just too much that she expects of the reader to understand and to have mastery over before reading this essay. I don't even know who Taylor is or what a phallic mother is.
Maybe I need to just pretend to have read "A cyborg manifesto" so that other feminists think I'm a good feminist. But in reality, this feminist didn't understand shit or shinola about what Haraway wrote here.
May 29, 2024
Incredible read.
At first I was just impressed by how perfect the metaphor of glitch fits, but only after about half way through I realised that it isn't actually just a metaphor? Structures of oppression not only parallel the digital, they are one and the same; only through an online space can we explore what it could be like to be rid of them.
I've not read much feminist theory but honestly radical perspectives like this are desperately needed; being stuck in the past where the online world is ignored by intersectional feminism is futile. As haraway says, we need to use the digital as a form of protest, embrace the role of a destructive virus, and then go out into the capitalist, binary world and move, empowered by our virtual worlds.
The only downfalls were how occasionally they seemed to go on about nothing at all, and how they invented a shakespearean number of new words which, while often interesting to see, made it hard to connect with what they were actually trying to convey at some points.
If you’re okay with pushing through that, however, it’s a perception-changing read filled with ideas necessary to be discussed to bring about real change in the modern age.
At first I was just impressed by how perfect the metaphor of glitch fits, but only after about half way through I realised that it isn't actually just a metaphor? Structures of oppression not only parallel the digital, they are one and the same; only through an online space can we explore what it could be like to be rid of them.
I've not read much feminist theory but honestly radical perspectives like this are desperately needed; being stuck in the past where the online world is ignored by intersectional feminism is futile. As haraway says, we need to use the digital as a form of protest, embrace the role of a destructive virus, and then go out into the capitalist, binary world and move, empowered by our virtual worlds.
The only downfalls were how occasionally they seemed to go on about nothing at all, and how they invented a shakespearean number of new words which, while often interesting to see, made it hard to connect with what they were actually trying to convey at some points.
If you’re okay with pushing through that, however, it’s a perception-changing read filled with ideas necessary to be discussed to bring about real change in the modern age.
October 27, 2023
I used to think this was cool when I first read it during undergrad.
Now I hate this!
Growth ✨✨
Now I hate this!
Growth ✨✨
December 21, 2022
Parece que el paso de los años le dan la razón a Donna.
En la puerta del 2023 dudo de la muerte de la utopía y subrayo varias ideas de las que soltó la autora; otras, no.
Las estrellas que faltan las reparto en 50 50. La mitad de la que el libro es responsable la achaco a su corta extensión y a lo que yo entiendo como subjetividad a la potencia = ombliguismo. La otra, de la cual me culpo como lector no preparado, obedece, claro está, a mi incapacidad para seguir momentos de erudición y falta de comprensión en general sobre términos o teorías usadas en momentos particulares del libro, pero obedece en primera instancia a algo que va más allá del lenguaje académico: mi imaginación.
Hablando en burro: No se si soy demasiado viejo como para imaginar un mundo sin género ni génesis, o soy demasiado joven como para creer que renunciar a la pasión y demás excesos de la dualidad es posible y/o deseable.
Aún así, no en su exposición como sí en su intención y teoría, digo, muy recomendable.
En la puerta del 2023 dudo de la muerte de la utopía y subrayo varias ideas de las que soltó la autora; otras, no.
Las estrellas que faltan las reparto en 50 50. La mitad de la que el libro es responsable la achaco a su corta extensión y a lo que yo entiendo como subjetividad a la potencia = ombliguismo. La otra, de la cual me culpo como lector no preparado, obedece, claro está, a mi incapacidad para seguir momentos de erudición y falta de comprensión en general sobre términos o teorías usadas en momentos particulares del libro, pero obedece en primera instancia a algo que va más allá del lenguaje académico: mi imaginación.
Hablando en burro: No se si soy demasiado viejo como para imaginar un mundo sin género ni génesis, o soy demasiado joven como para creer que renunciar a la pasión y demás excesos de la dualidad es posible y/o deseable.
Aún así, no en su exposición como sí en su intención y teoría, digo, muy recomendable.
February 13, 2018
Não apenas pela melhor frase feminista da história "prefiro ser uma ciborgue a uma deusa", o manifesto é ótimo porque dá uma ideia muito fundamental sobre os corpos para além de apenas construções sociais ou essencialismos. Ele vai muito além. Fico pensando como se lê pouco de Haraway e como se quer entender ficção científica AINDA como algo no devir ou para-além. Ah e vale ressaltar que a autora ainda junta teoria crítica marxista no bolo ciborgue-biológico. Livraço, apenas.
January 27, 2019
An incredibly dense and academic but still playful look at identity, feminism and the future. Given its age its intersectionalism is notable, but I'm not sure I agree with (nor understand) all of Haraway's points. Still, a hugely fascinating and still relevant manifesto—and one that still stands out in opposition to the white straight male patriarchal structures that define Silicon Valley and therefore the technological near-future.
July 20, 2023
‘By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.’
BLEW MY BRAIN TO PIECES AND RECONSTRUCTED IT WITH ROBOT PARTS !!!
BLEW MY BRAIN TO PIECES AND RECONSTRUCTED IT WITH ROBOT PARTS !!!
March 11, 2017
Sejamos todos ciborgues.
October 20, 2020
What the fuck did I just read?
June 30, 2021
"I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess"
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