Critical Annotated Webliography ---DONNA

‘Cyborgs are hybrid entities that are neither wholly technology nor completely organic, which means that the Cyborgs has the potential not only to disrupt persistent dualisms [in language and thought]… but also to refashion our thinking’. (Balsamo). Drawing on current scholarly work, discuss ways in which the cyborg is still a transgressive figure.

What does cyborg stand for? Who first came up with the word “cyborg”? Do cyborgs exist today? These inquiries reach an answer but not lacking an apparent pathway of skepticism. Even though many papers do not show a linear history with a well drawn of chronology, the cyborg becomes a very mystifying issue with many facets. In order to critically assess Anne Marie Balsamo’s assertion, cyborgs mixed with body that are neither completely machinery nor totally natural, which means that cyborg has the possible not only to interrupt constant dualisms in verbal communication as well as thinking, but also reproduce our thinking. To start with the webliography, I first examine her passage, to put on a clearer understanding of both her meaning and her assertion of cyborgs. Then, I approached five readings that established practical for budding and providing information on what would comprise my chief argument.

First, Using Laura Jacobs’s Science Fiction article along with artificial persons, the article Concluding Conclusions [1] entitled cyborgs or robots or machines or else androids, make difficult and confront our thoughts of personhood, it is a high-quality opening that to be proved the ideas of collective boundaries and how they have traditionally been formed. Especially, she demonstrated the construction of Cyborgs and the blurring of borders in science fiction to be frankly associated to three major progressions; psychology, time, and religion. Laura Jacobs, however, is also rather concise and all-surrounding with her writing.

Second, I get the article from The Cyborg: Technological Socialization and Its Link to the Religious Function of Popular Culture [2] by Brenda E. Brasher. Ongoing my investigation into the force of Anne Marie Balsamo’s declares on spiritual boundaries, Brenda E. Brasher is a wide-ranging analysis that tackles the troubles created in a digital society when discussing about the world in a Judeo-Christian tradition of agrarian tales and morals. The boundaries of correct and incorrect are outwardly wholly puzzled by the latticing of body and mechanism in the Cyborg era, in particular for the reason that a lot of Christianity is supported on the flesh and body of the living Lord. Brenda E. Brasher sketches the horror that can be allied with such a fundamental re-conception of our body as Cyborgs. Furthermore, this was an attribute of the previous article by Laura Jacobs and the suggestion that we are out of command of the digital culture on the earth is habitual throughout a great deal of science fiction. However both Anne Marie Balsamo and Brenda E. Brasher tender wish for us- cyborgs and this is the perception of hope. I consequently started to see the sights with relation to my chosen pieces.

Cyborgs and moral identity [3] from G Gillett was distinctive in that it was one of the only some sources studied to not create any suggestions to cyborgs in works of fiction. Gillett presents a practical, useful, scientific and logical grounding to Anne Marie Balsamo’s viewpoint of contemporary day human being the same as cyborgs, and cyborgs as part machine part organism. He discovers what it means to be a “natural” human being and the characteristics that construct human unlike from machines – that of having a “soul”, the capability to reproduce, and the notion of perception. Gillett obtains Balsamo’s assertion that we are cyborgs and questions society’s reaction to this development, whether we fear, reject, or accept what we have, according to Balsamo, turn into. Using these real life examples, he elaborates on the elements which make us part machine. Although Cyborgs and moral identity is an academic paper, it is written in a journalistic approach in the logic that it utilizes words in a way that build the paper each to digest. It does not, nevertheless, fall into the trap of flattering informal. G Gillett points that cyborg is still in a transgressive figure.

You Are Cyborg [4] by Hari Kunzru is a blurring definition of boundaries in the digital age of what a cyborg is. It is in a contradiction to a declaration made later on in the piece of writing, when it is affirmed that the initial real cyborg has been along with us for approximately 50 years. The cyborg, it states, is a lab rat which had a pump placed in its body that brought into its system exacting chemicals. This obstacle begs one to question whether a person needs barely to interrelate with a machine, as one might do if they used a computer, to be reflected on a cyborg, or whether they require to be rooted with a mechanic tool such as a pacesetter to qualify as a cyborg. Giving the accurate tackle, we can all be reconstructed, if female plus male are not natural but are constructed, similar to a cyborg. The article provided specific illustrations. In a dialogue with Haraway, she declares how Olympic competitors, in order to win, they have to put together themselves with the most modern technology in order to be converted into stronger, or faster. These part-machine, part-human cyborgs are now measured in ‘natural’ athletes. Haraway couldn’t observe the chaos about athletes using drugs to boost their performance, since they were already scientifically improved cyborgs. It says that being a cyborg is about the machines that can be used for body-enhancing. Hari Kunzru’s article also talked about how the term cyborg was invented. This statement has the apparent contradiction of the article aside; nevertheless, ‘You are cyborg’ offers an attractive and detail argument for humans in the present time as being cyborgs. Additionally, it features an interview with Donna Haraway, giving trustworthiness to the article. I think this article is very practical because it interviewed with Donna Haraway about her ideas, which she conferred in an obvious approach, giving related cases. And it is connected to the thought of Anne Marie Balsamo which cyborg is still a transgressive figure.

The Journal of Evolution and Technology is where I found an article by Dr. Andy Miah entitled Be Very Afraid: Cyborg Athletes, Transhuman Ideals and Posthumanity [5]. For my final source, I hunted to find an actual human demonstration of a cyborgian ontology for various explanations. He disputes that transhumanism is not an innovative ambition, but relatively a modern reality. As the generous field is premised on optimistic philosophies of humanness and physical ‘naturalness’, it is appealing to see the definite mechanics of posthumanism in place before now. As a matter of fact, it is the stadium that Miah disagrees that “sport offers a unique environment where transhumanism can gain social credibility and where its ideals become manifest and normalized”. This article elevates motivating and exciting debate over two side undertones stimulates by such a cultural/ social sequence. Cyborg disrupts persistent dualisms, it also refashion our thinking.

In conclusion I think that these sources were of superior assist in offering information to support my main argument. Moreover, these sources would enfold the guiding question. They are directive to critically assess what is meant by Anne Marie Balsamo’s assertion that in brief, the cyborg is possible to dislocate continual in speech and notion, as well as modify our philosophy. The traditional boundaries become twined together in digital culture and that the Anne Marie Balsamo’s cyborg; part machine, part organism, made up essentials of science fiction with nature, goes into our social actuality in the course of conflict, athletics, the media, science, cyberspace, and numerous other ingredients of our customs.

References

[1] Concluding Conclusions. 22 March 2009 <http://pages.slc.edu/~lajacobs/Conclusions.htm>
[2] The Cyborg: Technological Socialization and Its Link to the Religious Function of Popular Culture. 24 March 2009. <http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=404>
[3] Gillett, G.“Cyborgs and moral identity.” Journal of Medical Ethics 32 (2006): 79-83. 22 March 2009. <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2563338>
[4] Kunzru, H. “You Are Cyborg.” Wired 5.02 (1997). 26 March 2009. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffharaway.html>
[5] Miah, A. “Be Very Afraid: Cyborg Athletes, Transhuman Ideals & Posthumanity.” Journal of Evolution and Technology 13 (2003). 28 March 2009. <http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/miah.html>