Sunday, March 20, 2011

Betty Wu **Critical Annotated Webliography


 
Question: If science fiction is a genre that imagines our future, what happens to gender and race?

1.       Erickson, Mark. “Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human IntelligenceCanadian Journal of Sociology 29.3 (2004): 471-473. JSTOR. 7 Mar 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654679>
In the beginning of the journal article, Mark point out that our lives are becoming increasingly connected to "non-penetrative cyborg technologies” and these are poised on the brink of a revolution. He believed that we will more focused and enhanced relationship with technology in our future. Then, Mark use Andy Clark’s overview of some recent trends in the everyday technologies. Clark stated what “Cyborg technology” which means is, ultimately gadgets that we can use in our everyday lives. He describes cyborg technology as being "cyborg like" such as mobile phones, PDAs etc. These technologies are becoming increasingly be used in our daily life. As we spend more and more time with these smart technologies, our lives will be transformed and humdrum routine, also, it will be done for us by these external "non-penetrative" cyborg technologies. He also thinks that cyborg culture is largely a matter of keeping up-to-date with developments in new consumer technologies such as toys for boys and cyborgs for boys. For Clark, cyborgs are potential combinations or interactions between humans and technology, especially communication technologies. Cyborgs are combinations of the biological and the technological. It breaks boundaries, challenges assumptions and categories, breaks rules and cyborg cultural must be a important assets for our future.
2.      Kaiser, Ted. “The Internet Cyborg”12 Mar 2011.
<http://halfempty.com/wp/1999/04/the-internet-cyborg/>

Ted claimed that the internet can be perceived as an extension of oneself, much like other ‘cyborgs’ of the past which helps us form a separate but representative identity. Ted believed that using the internet is involves the creation of a new identity. The new identity is formed from the relationship between the original identity and the internet. In recent modern history, the cyborg has evolved through three important technologies, in this article, Ted point out three categories of cyborg in our daily life which is car, mobile phone and television. For car, it confines the individual within its physical boundaries. The driver cannot contact other drivers; he is in his own space, separated from all other space. For mobile phone, the cyborg perceives social space between individuals is decreased. For television, the TV extends our eyes and ears, the cyborg perceives an increased density of events, and it can happen in a coming time. The internet takes the technological extension of human capacity much further than past technology for many reasons. Ted thinks that the cyborg can imagine or comprehend potentially any idea. Because it combines characteristics of art, machines, and communications, it replaces the limitations of each. Several characteristics of the medium further guide the development of the internet cyborg’s identity. For internet, Ted stated that it is interactive, non-liner and diverse. And for the cyborg development which is creativity and self-Contradiction. In our future, internet and cyborg must be close together.
3.      Markens, Susan. “Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots American Ethnologist 26.2 (1999): 499-500. JSTOR. 15 Mar 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/647316>
Susan believed that, most people lives in the United States have been affected in some way by growing developments. In the fields of biomedical and computer technologies such as birth control pills, personal computers, and interactive televisions have fundamentally transformed how U.S. residents think and behave. Then she thinks that Haraway’s cyborg theory is match with this trend. As she mention in the article, the New reproductive technologies (NRTs) and other technologies disrupt and distort natural processes, or whether these technologies contribute to reinventions of notions. However, the NRTs is the dangers of technological hegemony. She also claimed that NRT raise many questions among legal, natural, risk etc. The concept of the cyborg is to encourage a nuanced analysis of new reproductive and other technologies. The concept is important because it forces acknowledgment of the ever-present interdependence between humans and the tools and technology we create.
4.      M, Sdy “Are Cyborgs a trend/threat for humanization?Mbiim blog.
22 Apr 2010.
11 Mar 2011. <http://simonmbiim.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/are-cyborgs-a-trendthreat-for-humanisation/>.
This is a blog that written by an online author, M, Sdy. He claimed that we use machines for our daily life with different needs. It has reached a point where for some people it is impossible to live without the new technology. This article shows the importance of cyborgs to help us to cross the borders of imagination. M divided this article into three parts. First, is about ‘Human-Computer symbiosis the basis of chimeras?The computers to formulate human thinking as they formulate solutions of problems and to enable human and computers to make decisions and handle complex situations without dependence on predetermined programs. For this to succeed in the human-machine coming together, it should be a new being, neither human nor machine but a cyborg. Second, on Cyborgisation and Cyborg, focuses more on the cyborg itself than the theoretical aspect of the transformative process of cyborgisation. Third, the cyborg body and gender, many of media texts about the cyborg turn around a stereotypical gender representation of the cyborg. But M thinks that the cyborg does not have a gender-sex matter, they are in their essence neither male, nor female, neither straight nor homosexual. Therefore, the cyborg is a post-gender and asexual creature who is not subjected to sexual objectification.
5.      Pimley, Daniel. "Cyborg Futures: Cyborgs, Cyberpunk and the future of the body" www.pimley.net. 24 Aug. 2003. 8 Mar. 2011. <http://www.pimley.net/documents/cyborgfutures.pdf>.
This paper is a study of the image of cyborg though Japanese animated film. In the study of different Japan films, Daniel found that cyborg characters presenting a new image of a hybrid cyborg sexuality, cyborg gender and cyborg race. In the part of gender boundary, he thinks that cyborg gender is always transgressing. Cyborg not as imperfectly gendered not just male or female, but as third or other sex. When discuss a non human, a cyborg, Daniel claimed that we should consider something outside of sexual dimorphism, or a third possibility. In Japan animated film, cyborg, represent fears and desires of the culture. The cyborg brings together and at the same time separates, displaces the sex and gender of its body. Because the cyborg is not either male or female, it becomes always the cyborg others. Apart of this, Daniel stated that the cyborg’s gender is dependent upon ‘random formations’, it is not binary because it may contain differing sex or gender. So, Daniel argues that does cyborg bisexual or not? Finally, he doesn’t know because the cyborg has no culturally imposed sex or gender difference. In terms of cyborg race, he thinks that cyborg seems to be multi-racial, should be a combination of several races, since it has crossed all binary division already, including black and white. Also, cyborg is a new species; it is not difficulties to believe that it has a new race.

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