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20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries

  • Felix Grewe

    Felix Grewe is a Research Fellow and PhD student in the Department of Philosophy at Paderborn University. He is affiliated with the Chair of Practical Philosophy and the research project, the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. His research focuses on the works of Donna J. Haraway, particularly in the fields of gender philosophy, feminist philosophy, philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies.
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Women and Their Body
This chapter is in the book Women and Their Body

Abstract

Donna Haraway’s research is concerned with the ‘reinvention’ of the natural and socio-cultural boundaries of the human, the organic and the technological (Haraway 1985, 1991). An explicit reference is the redefinition of the human, the body and sex/gender without patriarchal dichotomies. The dissolution of the gender binary is to be achieved through the realisation of a new emerging species: the cyborg. This chapter explores Haraway’s concept of the entanglements between biological organisms/bodies, technical objects and socio-cultural ontologies. An important aspect is her cyborg as a solution to the worse situation of women in order to disempower patriarchal mechanisms of discrimination. The aim is to create a new and diverse species/corporeality that unifies reinvented ontologies, boundaries and dichotomies in opposition to patriarchal categories of gender, race and class. Furthermore, a consideration of her works is necessary to explain the relations between biological organisms, the anthropocenic earth system and today’s socio-political dimensions.

Abstract

Donna Haraway’s research is concerned with the ‘reinvention’ of the natural and socio-cultural boundaries of the human, the organic and the technological (Haraway 1985, 1991). An explicit reference is the redefinition of the human, the body and sex/gender without patriarchal dichotomies. The dissolution of the gender binary is to be achieved through the realisation of a new emerging species: the cyborg. This chapter explores Haraway’s concept of the entanglements between biological organisms/bodies, technical objects and socio-cultural ontologies. An important aspect is her cyborg as a solution to the worse situation of women in order to disempower patriarchal mechanisms of discrimination. The aim is to create a new and diverse species/corporeality that unifies reinvented ontologies, boundaries and dichotomies in opposition to patriarchal categories of gender, race and class. Furthermore, a consideration of her works is necessary to explain the relations between biological organisms, the anthropocenic earth system and today’s socio-political dimensions.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter V
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. List of Abbreviations
  4. 1 Introduction Women and Their Body: Breaking the Silence 1
  5. Part I The Feminist Perspective
  6. 2 The Panoptic Gaze: Female Body and Place 19
  7. 3 The Female Body and Freedom: Conflict of Life or Colonial Dilemma in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations? 41
  8. 4 Relative (Non-)Existence of Female-Specific Neuropathology in Current Neuroimaging Research into Hysteria/Functional Neurological Disorders 53
  9. 5 Sexual Bodies: On Desire and Pleasure in Feminist and Thoughts 79
  10. 6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful 95
  11. 7 Beauty Practices and Ukrainian Women Refugees in the Context of Russia-Ukraine War: Another Double Bind 109
  12. Part II The Feminist Ethics Perspective
  13. 8 Distractibility: Wandering Between Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen 129
  14. 9 On Being ‘Indisposed’ to Study and Work, or the Discourse of the Victorian Women’s Menstruation 147
  15. 10 Female Reproductive Bodies and the Shift from Risk to Threat Society: The (Mis)Use of the Powers of Pregnancy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-Series 163
  16. 11 Andrea Dworkin. Life, Death, War, and Virginity: A Radical Truth 179
  17. 12 Reproduction, Structural Injustice, and the Problem of Speaking for Others 197
  18. Part III The Phenomenological Perspective
  19. 13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body 213
  20. 14 Between Feminist Phenomenology and Socio-Structural Critique: The Hybrid Construction of Female Embodiment in the Early Theoretical Framework of Iris Marion Young as a Locus of Radical Interdisciplinarity 233
  21. 15 Confined Spatiality as Deontological Feeling: Iris Marion Young, the Embodied Sense of Entitlement and Its Varieties 251
  22. 16 Mothers Matter: Discussing Motherhood in Gender Studies and Feminist New Materialisms 269
  23. Part IV The Alternative Femininities Perspective
  24. 17 The Female Body and Leontion: Why Were Epicurean Women Capable of Philosophy? 287
  25. 18 Do Women Think with Their Body? Descartes, Malebranche, Poulain de la Barre 303
  26. 19 Arca as Demiurge: Cyborg’s Body, Mutant’s Body 321
  27. 20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries 339
  28. List of Contributors 339
  29. List of names
  30. List of subjects
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111396934-021

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter V
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. List of Abbreviations
  4. 1 Introduction Women and Their Body: Breaking the Silence 1
  5. Part I The Feminist Perspective
  6. 2 The Panoptic Gaze: Female Body and Place 19
  7. 3 The Female Body and Freedom: Conflict of Life or Colonial Dilemma in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations? 41
  8. 4 Relative (Non-)Existence of Female-Specific Neuropathology in Current Neuroimaging Research into Hysteria/Functional Neurological Disorders 53
  9. 5 Sexual Bodies: On Desire and Pleasure in Feminist and Thoughts 79
  10. 6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful 95
  11. 7 Beauty Practices and Ukrainian Women Refugees in the Context of Russia-Ukraine War: Another Double Bind 109
  12. Part II The Feminist Ethics Perspective
  13. 8 Distractibility: Wandering Between Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen 129
  14. 9 On Being ‘Indisposed’ to Study and Work, or the Discourse of the Victorian Women’s Menstruation 147
  15. 10 Female Reproductive Bodies and the Shift from Risk to Threat Society: The (Mis)Use of the Powers of Pregnancy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-Series 163
  16. 11 Andrea Dworkin. Life, Death, War, and Virginity: A Radical Truth 179
  17. 12 Reproduction, Structural Injustice, and the Problem of Speaking for Others 197
  18. Part III The Phenomenological Perspective
  19. 13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body 213
  20. 14 Between Feminist Phenomenology and Socio-Structural Critique: The Hybrid Construction of Female Embodiment in the Early Theoretical Framework of Iris Marion Young as a Locus of Radical Interdisciplinarity 233
  21. 15 Confined Spatiality as Deontological Feeling: Iris Marion Young, the Embodied Sense of Entitlement and Its Varieties 251
  22. 16 Mothers Matter: Discussing Motherhood in Gender Studies and Feminist New Materialisms 269
  23. Part IV The Alternative Femininities Perspective
  24. 17 The Female Body and Leontion: Why Were Epicurean Women Capable of Philosophy? 287
  25. 18 Do Women Think with Their Body? Descartes, Malebranche, Poulain de la Barre 303
  26. 19 Arca as Demiurge: Cyborg’s Body, Mutant’s Body 321
  27. 20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries 339
  28. List of Contributors 339
  29. List of names
  30. List of subjects
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