Monday, April 27, 2009

Presentation Outline by Viven Szeto

“Cyborg Citizen: Posthuman Possibilities” by Chris Hables Gray

Within certain technologically determined limits, we can socially construct the future we choose. The process of choosing, however, is profoundly political and therefore it is anything but straight-forward

Subjectivities of posthumanity
-Talk about the different attitudes towards cyborgs in different cultures
-Bodies can be remade technologically

Carnival Cyborg
-Humans have always aspired to be cyborgs and we have always feared that aspiration
-Cyborging ourselves is costuming ourselves from the inside out, a disturbing technocarnival with permanent consequences
-We are a cyborg society of tools, machines, and organisms but we deny it
-Cyborging is something we do to ourselves as well as the world
-Cyborgs are invented as new technosciences

The future is not yet written
-Cyborg politics are about power, as all politics are. Power is both coercive and constructive
-Knowledge is power. Knowledge as power moves from the specific to the general and back again
-Knowledge is situated. Specific types of cyborgization have their own histories and implications
-Meanings are constructed, which means they can be chosen

Cyborgization will not make us like gods, but we may be able to live better and longer than any human or protohuman has before

1 comment:

  1. As there are many different ideas stated in my reading, I have tried hard to make it short by didn’t presented some of the examples of the concepts. However, I found I have done it wrongly, as it would lost the coherence between liberals, moderates and cyborgizations if I did not mentioned the culture experience towards cyborgs. By the way, this is really a good experience in doing a summary of reading, thanks.

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