This thesis examines a recent trend in contemporary science and speculative fiction to produce new and/or alternative iterations of reproduction that are not limited by biology, gender, or species. Through Donna Haraway’s notion of “cyborg regeneration” and recent critical and theoretical revisionings of this concept, I investigate this trend in three key texts: Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods, Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber, and Larissa Lai’s long poem “rachel” from her book of poetry Automaton Biographies. Each of these authors offers representations of reproduction that counter gender stereotypes and essentialism and produce new cyborg maternal or explicitly non-maternal figures unbound to patriarchal models of repronormativity and colonialist constructions of the mother. By portraying these nonunitary maternal figures and/or non-reproductive bodies, I argue that these sf texts present new forms of procreation that further feminist conversations about gender, the body, the limits of the human, future populations, and desire.

Abstract: This thesis aims to explore how utopian desires re/shape the posthuman, cyberspace and histories by means of information technologies in William Gibson¡¦s Idoru and All Tomorrow¡¦s Parties, which construct a fragmented but subversive power by representing the world in a utopian text that allows the free play of ideology. Gibson uses utopian imagination to cobble together a near future that reflects his concern with information technologies and media over contemporary society. Utopian imaginations on the one hand open up possibilities and transform fixed ideas; on the other, utopian imaginations are easily turned into utopian desires that are subject to manipulation if utopian designers want to sell. I intend to discover how desires to realize a utopia (body, space, and history), which is the ultimate goal of utopian program, are being manipulated by utopian designers. I will mainly adapt and blend Katherine Hayles¡¦s notion of the posthuman perspectives to challenge human possibilities, Donna Haraway¡¦s notion of the cyborg as a blasphemy to Western traditions, Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus to examine utopic expressions in William Gibson¡¦s textual constructions of utopias, and Walter Benjamin¡¦s notions of material historiography and history¡¦s messianic power in tracing individual memories under a capitalist contextualized History. In Chapter One, I will argue that Idoru as well as Idoru metamorphosize from a dialectical structure into an informational pattern-random structure, from a commodity into a posthuman subjectivity. I will adopt Katherine Hayles¡¦s concept of information narratives in explaining the re/shaping of Rei¡¦s body and her concept of the posthuman to explicate the struggle between the posthuman and the transhuman. In Chapter Two I will argue that cyberspace serves as a utopia that brings forth the desire to transcend the flesh. This utopian desire is a transgressive discourse that breaks up the totality of a closed system. Moreover, cyberspace exposes the feedback looping of the discourses of capitalism and anti-capitalism. Respectively, by the representation of virtual Venice and the Walled City, these two utopias write proposals that project discourses of pleasure and criticism for achieving their programs. I will adopt Donna Haraway¡¦s cyborg ontology in explaining cyberspace as a transgressive discourse and Louis Marin¡¦s Disneyland analysis as an apparatus of utopic expressions and the limits of utopia. Next, in Chapter Three, I shall expose how Harwood the capitalist manipulates the world to fit into his utopian proposal: modernization of the city as a manifestation of a utopia by means of cyberspace as a network that connects people globally. To contravene Harwood, Idoru, Laney and the Walled City denizens collaborate to checkmate Harwood¡¦s king. I will elaborate on the interactions between the universal history and the individual histories based on Walter Benjamin¡¦s concept of history.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Northwestern University, 1997. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 58-04, Section: A, page: 1336. Adviser: Rosemary Radford Ruether.

Are we cyborgs or humans? This question is at the heart of this investigation, and the implications of it are all around us. In Christian theology, humans are seen as uniquely made in the image of God (imago dei). This has been taken to mean various things, but broadly, it suggests an understanding of humans as somehow discrete from, and elevated above, other creatures in how they resemble God. Cyborgs mark a provocative attempt to challenge such notions, especially in the work of Donna Haraway, whose influential ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ (1991) elaborated a way of understanding cyborgs as figures for the way we live our lives not as discrete or elevated, but as deeply hybridised and involved in complex ways with technologies, as well as with other beings. Significantly, Haraway uses the cyborg to critique notions of the human rooted in theological anthropology and anthropogeny: the cyborg was not created in Eden. This assertion is the starting point of my investigation of cyborgs and humans in theological anthropology. Analysis of this position is broken down into three key concepts throughout the investigation that form the three main parts of the structure: (1) What is the significance of Eden, specifically as a point of origin? What ideas do we inherit from Genesis mythologies, and how do they influence our multitudinous understandings of not only humans, but also cyborgs, that range from the Terminator, to astronauts, to hospital patients? What does it mean to say that the cyborg cannot recognise Eden or even dream of the possibility of return?(2) If the cyborg was not created in Eden, then is it still to be considered as creaturely? How does this figure tessellate into, or challenge, notions of human nature and sin in the absence of an origin or teleology in a Garden? What commentaries of the human as created in God’s image can we compare this to, and how do all of these readings bear on how we see ourselves and technologies? (3) More constructively, given that the cyborg amalgamates the organic and the mechanic, and discusses hybridity, how might this be appropriated by theological anthropology? What does it mean to say that we are hybrids? From these questions, I reflect on tensions between the cyborg and the human, and make suggestions for a theological appropriation of the cyborg figure that takes heed of the emphasis on hybridity by applying it to notions of Eden and imago dei. The overarching aim is to decentre and destabilise the human, and to refigure it within its broader networks that are inclusive of other creatures, technologies, and God.

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In this thesis I investigate the mediating role of playful technological artefacts designed for animals and humans through theory and practice with the over-all aim to explore how we can design meaningful artefacts both for and with animals in order to better understand them and enrich or improve their lives.Starting from Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory, which offers a valuable starting point for the inclusion of both humans and nonhumans as actors in a shared network that is constantly being made and remade, I suggest adopting a more informed form of inevitable anthropomorphism in interaction design with animals. Drawing from the work of Donna Haraway I argue for an approach in which we aim to experiment with actual situated design contexts through playful interactions. In this setting we can explore ‘becoming with’ as the worldly embodied interpretations of both human and animal and the meaningful bodily relationships that are developed within the course of the interactions that take place. Instead of focusing on animals and humans as users, as is often the case in ACI and HCI practices, I propose to visualise what happens between the actors, as the dynamic process of playful interaction unfolds. Using the basic outlines of a programmatic research approach, I reflect upon a total of six prototypes that I have developed and tested. My aim is to visualise and reflect upon the dynamic relationships between the animal, human, and design artefact that can be observed within the course of the interaction. To build a design repertoire, these six artefacts are presented in the form of a design gallery in which the design concept and experiments are described for each artefact, supported with visualisations and explanations of the prototypes and testing. Subsequently, I concretely visualise the notion of becoming with between animals, humans, and artefacts, and explore the relationships between the involved actors as the interaction unfolds through annotated videos in which I aim to visually map the interactions that can be observed. For each prototype, I reflect upon these annotated videos together with the involved designers with the aim to better understand the mediating role of the technological artefact that we designed. For the first four prototypes the reflection is focused on the becoming with of the humans and animals that participate in the interaction with the artefact with the goal to evaluate the design of the prototypes. The last two prototypes specifically focus on the reflection on becoming with the animal as a human designer during the design process. Through visualising these dynamic interaction networks, the relationships between the animal, human, and artefact becomes more abstract and results in a better understanding of the mediating role of the technological artefact. Each prototype has major differences in the way the interaction network is visualised and the annotated videos show to be a valuable tool for the designer to discuss new design iterations that could be explored further. The knowledge contributions and takeaways of this thesis project include a new theoretical argument, a method that can be used for the visualisation of the dynamic interaction networks as a tool for designers to better understand the relationships between animal, human and artefact, a design repertoire with six different prototypes, and the annotated videos as concrete takeaways that provide a deeper insight into the experimentation, testing, and reflections of the six different prototypes.

Ce mémoire pose l'enjeu de la remise en question du corps propre de Donna Haraway à partir de son célèbre exemple du cyborg : un être qui subvertit les identités politiques par sa transgression des frontières qui fondent la naturalité des corps. Métaphore politique, les corps cyborgs sont pour Haraway l'occasion d'enraciner une politique qui allie les humains à la nature pour reconnaître la relation active et transformationnelle qu'ils entretiennent avec le monde. Les trois frontières de son manifeste sont développées : la frontière entre l'humain et l'animal, celle avec la machine et celle entre le monde physique et non-physique. Biologie / social; nature / culture; homme / femme : le cyborg transgresse la dualité avec sa politique émancipatoire hors dialectique. Le cyborg questionne l’origine des corps (ses définitions, ses fondements conceptuels) et déstabilise la notion du corps propre de l'individu pour centrer sur les relations elles-mêmes.

“Doctor Moreau and The Hunt for The Ethical Figure. From unsuccessful man-making to respectful relations with Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway and H. G. Wells” In H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), a scientist on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean attempts to create humans from animals. Wells draws on Charles Darwin’s theories on the origins of species and the descent of man to create a horror story in which the uniqueness of the human is called into question. This study uses the novel to investigate the re-emergent interest in human-animal relations, within the natural sciences as well as the arts and humanities, in the past twenty years. In what is often termed “the Animal Turn,” theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway, who are at the centre of this study, have dedicated a significant amount of their work to the animal question and in particular to the ethics of inter-species relationships. Furthermore this essay stages the interaction of fiction and theoretical discourse in an analysis that probes challenges inherent to the relations of humans to other species, such as the practice of eating meat, the killing of animals, and animal rights. Moreover, it considers how the figure of the animal has been used to define the human, as well as to dehumanize people in the justification of abuse and persecution. However, human-animal ethics also has positive connotations, discussed through the figures of positivity and possibility in play, sharing, contact and responsive responsibility. Taking its inspiration from Karen Barad’s method of diffraction, this study foregrounds new pattern-making while exploring how Derrida’s and Haraway’s strategies for formulating a new ethics are present in their use of tropes and figures. / Science fiction-romanen The Island of Doctor Moreau skrevs 1896 och handlar om hur en vetenskapsman på en avlägsen ö i Stilla havet försöker skapa människor av djur. Författaren H. G. Wells inspirerades av Darwins teorier om arternas uppkomst till att skriva en skräckberättelse där mänsklighetens unikhet sätts ur spel. Den här studien använder Wells text i syfte att undersöka hur relationen mellan människor och andra arter har kommit att få ett nytt intresse inom en mängd olika vetenskapliga, praktiska och konstnärliga ämnen i slutet av 1900-talet och början av 2000-talet, något som har kommit att kallas ”The Animal Turn”.  I centrum för studien återfinns teorier formulerade av filosofen Jacques Derrida och den feministiska vetenskapsteoretikern och biologen Donna Haraway. Båda två har ägnat stor del av sina respektive arbeten åt djurfrågan, framför allt med enträget intresse för hur ett etiskt förhållande mellan arter kan se ut. Studien låter romanen och de teoretiska texterna samverka i en analys som diskuterar utmaningar i människa-djur-relationer – som köttätande, dödande och rättigheter. Människan har till exempel använt sig av djuret för att definiera sig som människa, men också för att dehumanisera andra människor, och därmed kunnat utnyttja eller våldföra sig på dessa människor. Men människa-djur-etiken har också positiva aspekter: kontakt över språkgränser, att tillsammans utgöra världsmedborgare som alla består av och är beroende av varandra, att dela lek och arbete, att se och upptäcka den andre.  Med inspiration från Karen Barads användning av metoden diffraktion vill den här uppsatsen utforska Derridas och Haraways strategier för att formulera en ny etik genom bruket av figurer och troper.

Le cyborg est un avatar de ce que permet la science-fiction lorsqu’elle s’offre comme terrain où développer une heuristique des identités genrées. Donna Haraway, dans le Manifeste cyborg, a relevé le potentiel de liberté discursive que promettait cette figure romanesque. Il m’apparaît que, depuis sa fictionnalisation puis sa théorisation dans les années 1980 et 1990, le cyborg a muté au sein de l’entreprise science-fictionnelle littéraire. Le Silence de la Cité d’Élisabeth Vonarburg et Le Goût de l’immortalité de Catherine Dufour présentent des personnages dont la cyborgitude problématise les questions identitaires du genre humain, à travers une écriture spécifique, affectée par les technologies. Mon analyse des procédés scripturaux s’effectue de pair avec une analyse gender, ce qui me permet de mieux saisir la fictionnalisation toujours changeante des cyborgs dans les oeuvres de Vonarburg et de Dufour. Ces cyborgs déconstruisent les frontières des systèmes binaires traditionnels, en explorant les possibilités trans-genres et trans-espèces que permettent les métamorphoses de leurs corps excentriques. En tant que représentations fantasmées de désirs autrement inavouables, les cyborgs science-fictionnels témoignent du malaise inhérent de couples comme homme/femme, humain/animal ou organique/artificiel. / The cyborg is an avatar of what science fiction can produce as a territory where heuristics of gender identities are developed. In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway reveals the potential of discursive liberty provided by the cyborg’s narrative figure. It appears to me that since its fictionalization as well as its theorization throughout the 1980’s and the 1990’s, the cyborg has evolved within science fiction. Élisabeth Vonarburg’s Le Silence de la Cité and Catherine Dufour’s Le Goût de l’immortalité present characters whose cyborg nature explores questions of humankind’s identities through a certain writing affected by technology. My study of these writing processes is conducted through the analysis of gender. This allows me to better understand the ever-changing fictionalization of the cyborgs found within Vonarburg’s and Dufour’s work. These cyborgs deconstruct the borders of traditional binarist systems by experimenting the trans-genders and trans-species possibilities their excentric bodies enable. As fantasized representations of desires otherwise unmentionable, the science fictional cyborgs attest the inherent uneasiness of couples such as man/woman, human/animal or organic/artificial.