Critical Annotated Webliography

In writing the brief explanation of how feminists think towards the Donna Haraway’s figure of the cyborg, I found that I have to fully understand the key concepts of it. In order to start, I used to search the words like cyborg, Haraway, post-gender, etc. in different search engine. It is not easy to find the journals or article in which containing both pros and cons for Haraway’s argument. Indeed, feminists are commonly tends to totally against or mostly correspond to her. For academics writing, I believe I can only avoid bias if I have received those viewpoints. The more articles I read, the more complete ideas I get. So, I would like to use my sources in different styles or types such that they may help me to rich my statements. Here are the sources:

[1] Caddick, Alison. (1992) Feminist and Postmodern: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg. Arena. Retrieved 12th April 2008, from http://www.arena.org.au/ARCHIVES/General%20Archive/arena_99-100/haraway.html

Naming Haraway as the second wave feminism, the author has stated the difference of post-modern-determinit and historical-determinist ideologies. Different from other sources, this article has discussed the notion of cyborg in different aspect. Caddick figured that even Haraway may not recognize the powerful ability of cyborg. ‘Feminism occupies a privileged moral ground in Haraway's cyborg essay. With examining the philosophical meanings of cyborg, Caddick did believe that ‘cyborg’ metaphor help feminism to spur both political activity and helping us in adjusting and understanding the meaning of the techno-scientific era. 

[2] Du Preez, Amanda. (2002) Chapter Six, The Cyborg body. Gendered Bodies And New Technologies. Retrieved 30th March 2008, from http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-08232004-155034/unrestricted/10Chapter6.PDF. 

This is the most details explanation of cyborg within the six sources. Rather than the key concepts of cyborg, the author has also mentioned that Harraway is technological determinism as well as social determinism. Different from those feminists, biological determinism, Harraway does not use the traditional briary categories to construct her analysis. It is because the cyberspace is now challenging the existed boundaries. Back to our traditional ideologies, women trends to be absent from technologies. Men own technologies as toys while women are seem to be apart from them. However, Harraway did prove that cyborg could absolutely fit into the post-gender world in which there is no gender at all. She believes that the cyberworld is a utopian post-gendered world without definite outlines and boundaries.

In contrast, the author used comment by another feminist, Alice Jardine, to doubt the originally idea of gender in cyberspace. Like parts of the feminists, Jardine only adopted some of the cyborg theory. In fact, they do dispute for the real sex of cyborg, regarding machines as the women. The author has used couple of Hollywood films as the examples to illustrate that the popular culture has been continuing the myth towards cyborg. Most of these films portrayed feminised cyborg as evil and hyer-masculinised cyborg could always retain popularity over a feminised cyborg. It is clear that cyborg is also based on sexed and gendered biases. 

[3] Haraway, Donna. (August 2000). Birth of the Kennel: Cyborgs, Dogs and Companion Species. Lecture at the European Graduate School with Schirmacher, Wolfgang. Saas Fee, Ski Switzerland. Retrieved 11th April 2008, from http://www.egs.edu/faculty/haraway/haraway-birth-of-the-kennel-2000.html.

This was the transcript of a lecture by Donna Haraway presented in 2000. She delivered her lecture with the explanation of Cyborg Manifest, the additional point of view in the modern cyber-world and in responding to the questions by the Audience and other scholars. She has used dog as the cyborg metaphor in explaining the new notion of her argument since dogs have been under evaluations in living with humans. Haraway suggested that human were not really into what is dog. Indeed we do certain about who we are. Sometimes we need to look away from ourselves in order to understand ourselves deeper. Just like the lecturer, Schirmacher, raised that this is not the time to discuss ‘who is dominating whom’, but this is the generation to evolve and investigate the relationship between the human and machine. That is why Cyborg acts as the new organism for human to investigate the relationship. She has then highlighted the essentialism of Cyborg.

[4] Kluchin, Abigail. (8th April 2003) The Cyborg and the Golem. The Global Spiral. Retrieved 10th April, 2008, from http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/ArticleDetail/ tabid/68/id/8173/Default.aspx.

‘Cyborg feminism is a bold new myth; it cannot afford to ignore the old...’ In this article, the author used the word, golem, as the title in which point to the loophole of Harraway’s argument. Since Cyborg demonstrates the hybrid post- modernism of humans and technology, Cyborg feminists trend to mix the nature of the new and the old. Those feminists use cyborg to rebuild new concepts toward our society. Thus, the author used Nili as the argument to show the counterpoint of Harraway’s cyborg in referring simply ignored the history of human.

[5] Scott, Krista. (1997) The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist & Her Critic. The Feminist eZine. Retrieved 28h March 2008, from http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/philosophy/Cyborg-Scientist-Feminist.html.

Similar to Amada Du Preez, the author has also focused on the gendered or non-gendered cyborg. Screening the headings and the graphics of the article, we can be easy to realize the standpoint of the author. With her reasons, we can discover that cyborg can be gendered. Besides, she has provided her analysis on how Harrayway’s cyborg is accepted and objected by cyber feminist and anti-technological respectively. Although the author used a large portion in criticizing the Harraway’s Cyborg Theory, she has shown her agreement on Harraway’s suggestion. They both thought that it is necessary for feminists in adopting science into feminism in order to enlarge their vision and bring the feminism forward. 

[6] Senft, Theresa. (2001) Theresa M. Senft's reading notes for 
Donna Haraway's
‘A Cyborg Manifesto’. Retrieved 13th April 2008, from http://www.terrisenft.net/students/readings/manifesto.html. 

This web is an introduction for Senft’s students to get the brief ideas of the Cyborg Manifesto. It is very suitable for the beginners or students to use as reference or even the dictionary to search the key words in related to cyborg. Out of the six sources listed here, this one is the only one to clearly state the three crucial arguments within Haraway’s text. Although Senft has not shown a clear standpoint within this article, she has described and breakdown from point to point. She has also referred to the four descriptions of the cyborg (cybernetic, hybrid, of the present, of the future). She commented Haraway’s cyborg concerns mainly on ‘boundaries crossing’ of the present instead of the prediction for the future. 

To conclude, Haraway’s Cyborg is absolutely incredible for describing our modern life, as it seems that we are living in a techno-determined world. Cyborg helps to bring feminism forward as feminists are no longer separating gender and technologies. Harayway’s argument about the hybridization of human and machines are meaningful to both popular culture and science fiction. Although most scholars has used the counterpoints of cyborg theory, like the homosexuality of cyborg verse the framed bias towards cyborg, in arguing Haraway’s theory, there is no clear assumption could be make in objecting the cyborg theory. Like most of the academic theory, Haraway could not avoid in being challenged by others due to the fact that the incompleteness of cyborg. Again, cyborg is applicable to many aspects since it is required to be the new organism for us to intensify the relationship of human and technologies.