Response to Haraway

Article Response to Donna Harway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto

One of the most important things that Donna Haraway relates in “A Cyborg Manifesto” is that we cannot totalize “woman” as so many radical feminists do, equating sex with gender. Haraway writes that “Cyborgs might consider more seriously the partial, fluid, sometimes aspect of sex and sexual embodiment. Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth” (315). Similarly, Hayles in How We Became Posthuman asks us to consider that functionalities might be universally present but that they rest as “potentials rather than actualities” (242). I’m curious as to what people think about universalizing such constructs of woman…I’m assuming that my using “constructs” might cause people to retort. It’s hard to move past universalizing and equating sex with gender as Radfems do. Cat and I, when we were designing our discussion for Wednesday, began to discuss how perhaps one can totalize what woman may be if we look at it solely socially.

I could also see a connection between Hayles and Haraway in how the machine and human inform one another. Hayles writes that “In the AL paradigm, the machine becomes the model for understanding the human. Thus the human is transfigured into the posthuman” (239). Haraway writes that “It is not clear who makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine. It is not clear what is mind and what body in machines that resolve into coding practices. In so far as we know ourselves in both formal discourse…and in daily practice…, we find ourselves to be cyborgs, hybrids, mosaics, chimeras” (313). Both women certainly buy into the fact that the machine and human inform each other’s understanding, though Hayles is sure that the human is transfigured into the posthuman through the machine.

One thing that I thought was interesting that Haraway discussed was how real-life cyborgs “are actively rewriting the texts of their bodies and societies” (313). This echoed what I remember of anorectics in the first chapter of Hayles where the question of what the body meant to the mind or whether it even mattered was posited to the reader. Perhaps another view might be that the posthuman, in “real-life” as Haraway calls it, uses their body as a tool. Hayles discusses the women laboring in Asia, putting their body at risk. Haraway discusses the anorectics using her body as a tool to gain back control or, in my opinion, to make visible the mind.

When Harway writes about how cyborg politics rests in a struggle against perfect communication it makes me think about Hayles and her discussion of how information, depending on how it is embodied, can mean something entirely different. Context matters. I’m glad we read both of these pieces against one another because the connections were plentiful. Hayles was a beast, but the Haraway actually helped me to process her book.

Hayles Response

Summary for H. Katherine Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics.

In Chapter 1, Hayles gives us the question of whether the mind can be separated from the body, a notion that we work with throughout the book. With all the materials Hayles read she realized that there were three stories: how information lost its body, how the cyborg was created as a technological icon and how a historically specific construction called the human is giving way to a different construction that we will call the posthuman (2). Hayles describes what posthuman is. She writes, “First, the posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life. Second, the posthuman view considers consciousness garded as the seat of the human identity… Third, the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate” (2-3). Hayles discusses issues that different theorists have with the posthuman. The anorexic example is particularly interesting when considering the body as separate from the mind. The core of her work is this: “Hence my focus on how information lost its body…. If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival.” (5). Hayles discusses how the posthuman and human coexist with each other, how when cybernetics was first forming it gave us a new way of looking at human beings, how cybernetics was born, when reflexivity entered, as well as the second and third waves of cybernetics. Its important to understand in this chapter that materiality and information are separate entities. Virtual Reality is discussed in one section as well as feedback loop perception. Skeuomorph, homeostasis, and reflexivity are terms discussed as well. Information is discussed as a pattern. Hayles says that we can look at her book in two ways: chronologically and narratively. She also says that we can construct virutality “as a metanarrative about the transformation of the human into a disembodied posthuman” but that we should be skeptical (22).

In “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers” Hayles explains that information is a pattern rather than a presence and that when we can identify information as both a pattern and randomness it can help us realize that noise can help a system reorganize at a higher level of complexity (25). The chapter is primarily concerned with that the “shift toward pattern/randomness and away from presence/absence, affects human and textual bodies on two levels at once, as a change in the body…and as a change in the message” (29). Hayles explains that we can’t think of the signifier as a single marker, that the signifier can become the signifier, and that the longer the chain of codes the more wild transformations that can occur. She focuses on mutation and how it is decisive and crucial. One issue I had with the text and that I’ve been thinking about a lot is when she says “A cyberspace body, like a cyberspace landscape, is immune to blight and corruption” (36). I wonder if it really is immune though because she later troubles the cyberspace body. It seems that it can shift and virus. She discusses Gibson’s novels and the creation of cyberspace. She also discusses in “Functionalities of Narrative” how informatics pushes the transformation of narrator form speaker to absent and the narrator as one who manipulates codes. I liked it when she wrote “The computer molds the human even as the human builds the computer” (47) and also, that “Information, like humanity, cannot exist apart from the embodiment that brings it into being as a material entity in the world; and embodiment is always instantiated, local, and specific. Embodiment can be destroyed, but it cannot be replicated. Once the specific form constituting it is gone, no amount of massaging data will bring it back” (49).

I found the third chapter to be INCREDIBLY boring even though its focus was on what made information more important than its materiality and the Macy Conferences. And, I’m not going to lie…I’m going to make my summaries of a few of these chapters pretty brief. When she discusses how when we separate information from meaning it helps us not have to deal with its changing values. She also relates that not everyone was ok with this. Some wanted meaning to change with context. Shannon, Stroud, MacKay, Kubie and McCulloch were major players in this chapter. The inclusion of the observer became a major issue in cybernetics and one that Hayles later focuses on.

In the fourth chapter, Hayles discusses cyborgs and how it disrupts a great deal: “Fusing cybernetic device and biological organism, the cyborg violates the human/machine distinction; replacing cognition with neural feedback, it challenges the human-animal difference; …it erases the animate/inanimate distinction…” (84).  Wiener is a major player in this chapter. She discusses his earlier work and then his work after WWII when he questioned whether there are essential qualities that exist in themselves apart from relations (91). He felt analogy and boundary work well together. In his later work he asserted that “boundary formation and anlogical linking collaborate to create a discursive field in which animals, humans, and machines can be treated as equivalent cybernetic systems” (93). Wiener also felt that entropy was the opposite of information. The discussion of borders was interesting in this chapter. I wasn’t quite sure as to what the savage was in this chapter.

Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo is discussed in the fifth chapter of Hayles. How cybernetics problematized boundaries in bodies, as well as cyborgs as living beings and narrative constructions is discussed. Hayles writes that “the cyborg signifies something more than a retrofitted human. It points toward an improved hybrid species that has the capacity to be humanitiy’s evolutionary successor” (117). The confrontation of cyborgs and literary bodies leaves neither unchanged.

In the sixth chapter, we are reminded about the work done with frog vision. For some reason I remember reading about these studies when I took psychology coursework during my BA. That the visual system of the frog constructs reality is key to their findings. Reflexivity is a major part of this chapter. The discussion of knowing whether others exist by experiencing them in one’s imagination was interesting. Hayles believes that von Foerster was greatly influenced by Maturana’s theory when he reconceptualized reflexivity. Autopoesis is discussed in this chapter (self-making). The observer is another issue discussed in this chapter and Maturana believes that the observer is directly linked to what she is observing, or rather, “structurally coupled” (142). He says that an observer of the same species is seeing pretty much the same thing as those involved in whatever is being observed. Allopoietic is also discussed as a term. Evolution in light of autopoiesis is discussed toward the end of the chapter.

In Chapter 7, Philip Dick’s novels are dissected. Hayles sums up the chapter toward the beginning when she states that Dick’s novels link cybernetics to concerns such as capitalism, gender, entropy and schizophrenic delusion, and fakery. The schizoid android is a major player in this chapter. That what is artificial can be living is key to Dick’s work. I don’t really like it when Hayles draws connections between Dick’s life and his work, but I dealt with it. Hayles says that the android represents “loss of free play, creativity, and most of all, vitality” (177). Hayles says that Dick emphasizes reflexivity in his work.

Chapter 8, “ The Materiality of Informatics” was a chapter I actually enjoyed.  I enjoyed pretty much 8-END. Hayles intends to focus on a more flexible framework to think of embodiment in an age of virtuality (193). She wants to integrate embodiment and abstraction, as well as demonstrate how this integration framework is useful in reading texts. Her discussion of philosophy and how philosophers are so caught up in consciousness that the body isn’t taken seriously. Embodiment is explained as “contextual, enmeshed within the specifics of place, time physiology, and culture, which together compose enactment…Whereas the body is an idealized form…embodiment is the specific instantiation generated from the noise of difference” (196). Embodiment is destabilizing and performative. “The body produces culture at the same time that culture produces the body” is one of my favorite citations on page 200. Incorporating and inscribing practices are made distinct by Hayles. I didn’t find the audiotape section to be particularly interesting.

Chapter 9 focuses on artificial life. Artificial life is dividied into three research fronts: wetware, hardware, and software. The discussion of Ray was really eerie and fascinating at the same time. I kind of didn’t want to read it. That the organism is the code and the code is the organism later in the chapter was also weird. How the observer is approached as “cut from the same cloth” was also interesting. AL as a successor to AI is discussed: “The machine becomes the model for understanding the human. Thus the human is transfigured into the posthuman” (239). One section that I found particularly interesting was when they were discussing on page 242 how really, we don’t have to reproduce to reproduce anymore. Later, when she writes that “human mind without the human body is not human mind” I wonder if some would argue that isn’t so.

In the final chapter we cover several novels that articulate posthuman. The first text, Blood Music, made me wonder about whether the posthuman needs to or should be or is aware of the human. In Terminal Games we must consider what happens when the posthuman is a threat and what that means for humans and acceptance. In Galatea 2.2 highlights gaps between human and computer consciousness. In Snowcrash  we are asked to consider whether we have always been posthuman. I liked all of Hayles questions at the bottom of p281 and I think they would be fruitful for class.

In the conclusion I was led to question what intelligence is when Hayles discusses the articulation of humans with intelligent machines (287). We are so caught up in what intelligence really is. I don’t think we even know what constitutes an intelligent human, let alone an intelligent machine.

Instead of a Meme or photo, I would like to add a link to the trailer for Her. I think its a great film and it was one I thought about for the duration of reading Hayles' work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4

ABSTRACT for seminar paper

Well, I started with this abstract. I work in abstracts before I begin a paper because they help me figure out my structure. After reading this one, however, you'll find that I completely changed my mind.

First Abstract:

As we move, in the contact zone of the composition classroom, toward utilizing social media platforms students use on a regular basis outside of its sphere, it is important to consider what hegemonic social structures are embedded within them. While much work in composition contends that we must ensure our classrooms build, foster, and maintain safe spaces, I argue, before incorporating SMS into our pedagogy, we must consider the ways in which such spaces trouble sexuality and gender: the silencing or interruption of performance of sexuality and gender; the troubling ways in which cissexual privilege, heterocentricism, repronormativity, and heteronormativity challenge representativity of sexuality and gender in online spaces, or are perpetuated; the very infrastructures of popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Do these spaces perpetuate the tradition and limits of “The Closet”, or, do they open the door? In the same spirit that Kristin Arola worked to unveil the ways in which young Native Americans represented their mixedblood identities on MySpace, with interview and close textual analysis, I ask three queer, traditional college aged persons about how they perform their sexuality and/or gender in the social media spaces they use online. I ask these individuals in what ways online spaces and non-online spaces affect how they represent their queer identities, whether they approach each SMS in the same way, and in what ways their queer literacy was shaped by a digital literacy with such spaces. Little investment is made into how sexuality and gender function and performs outside of heterocentric and ciscentric notions of queerness (i.e. T.V. Reed’s latest book). I argue a focus on queer students’ performativity is warranted and necessary if we are going to use SMS in the composition classroom.

If you've ever read any Deborah Britzman, especially her "Is There a Queer Pedagogy? Or, Stop Reading Straight," you'll read about what many in queer pedagogy describe as denial, disavowal, and shock. I've been experiencing this since I came out at 17. But these moments keep reoccurring, especially as I move toward entering the discourse of queer pedagogy. When I discussed what I wanted to do for my paper in class, I felt the shift of body and the silence that I am perfectly used to. The conversation was helpful in that the class asked that I consider what kind of subjects I would use and the role of family in online participation in SMS, but it was as if I had spoken something uncomfortable.

At the same time, I have also been in the midst of reading articles and viewing documentaries on AIDS in the late 80s and early 90s, especially the involvement of ACT-UP. One thing that we have been discussing in Dr. Shahani's "Gay and Lesbian Studies" course is that, even for the LGBT students in the class, this activist history has been erased. When I read articles, all working towards defining what queer pedagogy might mean, be, and do, all of them are caught up in representing marginality and not so much on acting from moments of disavowal. They also deny the reality that much of what it means to be queer is to be not just visible, but to be active and to engage in multimodal writing. I've decided to nearly revise my entire abstract into the following for my seminar paper.

New Abstract:

REINSCRIBING ACTIVISM THROUGH MULITMODALITY IN QUEER PEDAGOGY

Queer pedagogy is stuck. It isn't moving right now at all. When we read Deborah Britzman from the mid-90s, or Jonathan Alexander now (or ten years ago), we are still where we were. We are stuck in whether queer pedagogy might mean more than representing marginalized voices or more than operating from moments of disavowal. We are stuck in our conceptualization and cannot move towards praxis. Significantly, simply mentioning queer composition pedagogy shifts bodies. The fear the word "queer" invokes ranges from body language to "why?" to "really?" to issues of whether education is supposed to be comfortable. "Queer" disrupts the heteronormative structures--physical or pedagogical or political--that glue the day-to-day of our composition classrooms together. Nishant Shahani wrote that we must operate from the axes of failure and limits in queer pedagogy and Britzman wrote that we need to operate from moments of disavowal, but what makes this difficult is the fact that within queer pedagogy we have erased the history of activism, especially with AIDS. Visibility is important in our work, certainly, but this visibility was made possible through major movements such as the involvement of ACT-UP in the late 80s and early 90s into today. I argue that queer pedagogy needs to be more engaged with multimodal composing. The thing is, queer pedagogy is much older than we give it credit for.

When we look to the counter media, the majority of it multimodal, that arose in response to the AIDS plague and the queer safe sex movement, we might glean that we have forgotten that queer pedagogy has a history, and not static, but truly activist. By integrating the multimodal compositions from this movement in queer pedagogy, we might encourage students, like those activists, to not only overcome fear, limits, and disavowal but to write from these spaces. ACT-UP, in many ways, had to generate a pedagogy. In their work, which ranged from physically placing bodies on streets and in the walkways of churches to creating video to dressing as Jesus to creating posters that fused the visual with the verbal, “the viewer was to be activated to, minimally, a revision of her or his views and, more promisingly in terms of effecting change, to further interventionist actions arising out of greater understanding of how the government, its agents and agencies, as well as the private sector operate to create the deficits, inaction, and distress…” (Griffin 42). This sort of activist multimodal composing was necessary to give those deceased, those dying, and allies of those with AIDS awareness that there was a space for them and that they could learn, take action, and fight back. “Fight Back. Fight AIDS. ACT UP.” Queer pedagogy has a history of action, activism, and multimodal composing. In this paper, I would like to discuss the real history of queer pedagogy and its birth during the AIDS plague with the formation of ACT-UP. I will discuss how we need to move beyond conceptualizing queer pedagogy as representing marginality. I will then discuss how we might infuse queer activist multimodal composing into our composition classrooms and how this might help us actually act from and anticipate limits, fear, and disavowal.

Rubira and Gil-Egui

Response to Rubira and Gil-Egui's "Political Communication in the Cuban Blogosphere: A Case Study of Generation Y."

I saw many connections and reverberations of Castells in Rainer Rubira and Gisela Gil-Egui’s “Political communication in the Cuban blogosphere: A Case Study of Generation Y.” Primarily, and I think Castells may agree, Generation Y provides a space for Cubans and non-Cubans to discuss social and political issues that they would not otherwise be able to discuss. However, “a blog that chronicles its author’s residence in the country, but targets an audience mostly located outside it because of internal restrictions to Internet access and censorship by the Cuban government (171)” shows that there is a struggle to occupy space. The occupied space is critical. According to Castells, “The critical matter is that this new public space, the networked space between the digital space and the urban space, is a space of autonomous communication. The autonomy of communications is the essence of social movements” (11). Rubira and Gil-Egui explain, “No Cuban citizen can host a site on a national server… Private access to the Internet at home is still illegal and possible only through the black market or through hotels and tourist resorts, at prices well beyond the purchasing power of the average wage-earner in Cuba” (155). Perhaps, if we consider Castells work, a social movement, we might say, is not possible because of the limited access Cubans have to the Internet.

            Castells, aside from holding a rather utopic view on how much access the countries he discussed had to the Internet, and apart from mentioning the Occupy movement, negated to relate how much experience people had with activism. This is echoed in Rubira and Gil-Egui’s article when they write “Challenges in this regard in the Cuban context emerge not only because of unequal access to technology and important differences in media literacy between Cubans inside and outside the country…but also because of Cuban civil society’s lack of experience in democratic dialogue and mediation of difference” (174). If Cubans have little access to the Internet as well as little experience in having real political dialogue and moments of mediation, what can we really expect to happen? Castells wrote that historically social movements have been dependent on the existence of specific communication (currently multimodal, digital networks) and that feeding that energy for whatever is being made an issue is dependent upon a constant generation of ideas. Ideas cannot be generated or mediated so readily or so easily in Cuba. If outrage has to go through all of these hoops (using a German host, depending on friends in other countries, etc.), how can hope continue to sew itself to her?

            I don’t agree with the following, that “Generation Y provides a space for exchanges on Cuban politics and other issues of public concern in that country, which is relatively open to people outside and inside it as well as relatively free of governmental control. In other words, Generation Y represents one thriving instance in the constellation of communicative spaces that constitute the global public sphere, as defined by Castells (2008).” (159). Does it really provide a space for true response? It didn’t seem clear that Rubira and Gil-Egui knew who was responding to the blog. They new numbers and they could code the names of those responding to Generation Y, but can they track whether those responding are inside or outside the country in one with such limited access and one where punishment for speaking out is possible?

Rubira and Gil Egui write that “[D]espite the difficulties in accessing the Internet, gaps in terms of media literacy, and scarce experience in political dialogue, digital networks have led to the establishment of a meeting place for different sectors of civil society, located both inside and outside the country” (160) and I wonder if sometimes the digital space is all that can be done. Does it make the social movement lesser because it cannot occupy space? Slower?

           The authors also write that “[w]ith Twitter, Sanchez has gotten much more active in politics, expanding her reach to other platforms, such as cell phones. However, Twitter’s interactive capabilities fall short of opening opportunities for real and substantial dialogue between Sanchez and her followers, which could lead to enrichment of the topics addressed in her blog, mostly because of Twitter’s restrictions on post lengths (140 characters)” (164).  Later in the article the authors discuss how the blog responses are often to the most recent responses (165). Really, is social movement dependent upon conversation? Certainly it raises awareness, but I can’t help but question if we waiting for a meaningful event to occur like Castells says is necessary for a social movement to take place. And what, in a country with so little access, with constant fear of punishment, and with little space to be activists or simply in dialogue, would that event have to be?