text
- When was this essay written, and what seem to be some of its intellectual antecedents?
- Why does Haraway feel a need to postulate a theory of the cyborg? Is her choice of this construction effective rhetorically?
- How does this essay exhibit some of the preoccupations of other postmodernists we have read, such as Baudrillard and Deleuze and Guattari?
- Is there a contrast in tone, and if so, to what do you attibute this?
- What is meant by a cyborg, and what qualities are attributed to it? On what grounds is this attribution made? (2270-71, 2284)
- What does Haraway believe is passe about Marxism? On what grounds does she consider herself a socialist?
- What assumed intellectual boundaries have most recently been breached, and what is her opinion of these shifts in attitude? (2271-72)
- What would have been her opinion about the teaching of “intelligent design” in the schools? (2271)
- What forms of political activism does she point to as a model for others, and what may be implied in her choices? (2271)
- What does Haraway suggest is the appropriate substitute for “identity politics”? (2276)
- What forms of unity does she oppose? (2277) What modes of relationship should replace these false impositions of unity? (2277)
- What does Haraway see as some of the sins of recent feminisms? Of socialist and radical feminisms in particular? (2278-81)
- What is meant by the phrase, “the informatics of domination”? (2281ff.)
- What are some of the changes that she postulates in column form? (2281-82) For example, what does Haraway identify as the appropriate literary form for the new order? (2281)
- Of the changes she mentions, which seem significant (or accurate) to you?
- What are some alterations brought about by the “communications sciences” and biotechnology? (2284-85)
- What is the “homework economy”? (2286-87) As Haraway describes it, what are some of the trends it encompasses? (2287)
- What is her view of stages of the family? (2288) Of the effects of new technologies on work? On pleasure, gender, self-construction and the sense of identity? (2289)
- What does Haraway identify as “high-tech repressive apparatuses”? (2290) How does she suggest these may be undermined? (2290)
- What hope or possibilities does Haraway find for “women in the integrated circuit”? (2292)
- To what final myths does she appeal? How do these differ from earlier myths? (2293) Are these well-chosen?
- What elements of earlier myths does she feel these new myths should avoid? (2295)
- Why are her appeals for a "cyborg" illustrated by examples of women of color?
- What does she view as the appeal of feminist science fiction? What has changed in their presentation of "the human state"? (2297)
- In her conclusion, what does she enjoin should be our attitude toward machines, and our boundaries with machines? (2298)
- On what grounds does she advocate attention to regeneration rather than reproduction? (2299) Acceptance of the notion of what had formerly been seen as monstrous elements of nature?
- What does it mean to speak of a "the hope for a monstrous world without gender"? (2299)
- Is Haraway's work a lesbian manifesto as well; and if so, what do you think Rich or Butler might think of its contentions?
- What is meant by her conclusion, "Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess" (2299).
- In your opinion, which of Haraway’s assessments are equally applicable today?
- What is your opinion of this essay? What are its merits? Does it exhibit any contradictions or blind spots?