Critical Annotated Webliography (Question 2)

2. 'When the body is fractured into organs, fluids, and genetic codes, what happens to gender identity?' (Balsamo). Discuss some of the issues raised by the Visible Human Project about the embodiment gender, race and class.

The Visible Human Project Overview gives an overview of the Visible Human Project, which is one of the important terms that should be defined from the question. The official U.S. National Library of Medicine website describes the background and the methodology of the project thoroughly.

The project was established in 1989 in order to display the male and female anatomy visually. From this website, the details (i.e. data) of the project can be examined. It would be easier to see how it is related to the embodiment gender, race and class and how it challenges the notion of gender identity. There are problems with the Visual Human Project, however, such as the female corpse being from a woman who did not have reproductive organs that accurately represented one from a normal young woman. Additionally, the male was an executed man whose consent may have not been obtained willingly. Still, the Visual Human Project does fulfill its original purpose and has been a basis for many arguments and realizations in the scientific and general world.

In the article Both/And: Science Fiction and the Question of Changing Gender, Vint compared the different point of views by various authors regarding the issues of gender identity. The arguments of the authors can serve as evidence or counter-arguments for Balsamo's statement. It is essential to avoid bias when answering the stated question. Vint emphasizes the transsexual issue as it is controversial. Apart from this, Vint quotes Balsamo's line to support her ideas of speculative fiction.

It is also brought up that fictional bodies on the Internet have no definitive material form; they have no organs, no fluids. The online body can be any gender or no gender and can change between those forms at will. It will never be restricted by a form because such a construction cannot be created. The purpose of male and female is entirely temporal; there is no need for gender in a world that does not support reproduction. And so this point is particularly interesting because it raises the point of culture shaping gender, be it real culture or online culture.

Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women gives summaries of what Balsamo mentioned in her book. There is an introduction and six chapters that emphasize different gender issues. Although not all chapters are completely relevant to the stated question, it is still important to note what Balsamo believes. She suggests that women are reduced to "organs without bodies" and their surveillance is bred into society. People learn to treat women differently.

However, women have no organs online and thus their reproductive purpose is nullified. There is no meaning to gender on the Internet aside from ones our real life culture already created. However, the technology will bring women back eventually. The future will see that humanity and technology are inseparable and, though women have little place in modern technological history, technology is ultimately genderless and a rise for women will occur due to this.

Tara and Jui suggests in Anne Balsamo's Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women that gender has been forced upon technology because it is a part of culture and society. Humanity decided that the minds must be different and then, when that could not be proven, decided that women must be inferior due to their menstruation, child-bearing, and breasts. The old identities are easily recognized and we are trained to notice the differences from early ages. Society has no need for new definitions of body, new definitions of gender. People also cannot deny their real life experience and existence. There is no way to step away from the corporeal form and take an entirely virtual form. Therefore, even in cyberspace, gender remains to be constructed according to preformed ideas.

King discusses the problems revolving around current gender identities in Gender Identity Disorder: Analysis of a Cyberspace Support Group. There are potentially several genders aside from just male and female due to sexual preference and current biology. As well, such people that do not conform to the normal idea of gender are victimized in society and their abnormal gender endangers their mental health and living style. Even as the body has been torn apart, their will does not conform to their organs, the purpose that society decided they were to fulfill.

The cyberspace support group breaks down all the genders and creates a help group that is not concerned with sex or preference but with the support of each other. Breaking apart this boundary is essential to help because people are still too concerned with race, gender, and class. Even if the group will accept everyone, the person joining may feel insecure and may not receive the help that they need. People need cyberspace because it normalizes them into a state where they can be comfortable. They need not think about race, class, or gender because, for those moments, it does not exist.

Spittle suggests that social change and progression is inhibited by the rigid definitions of race, gender, and class from his article Gender, Subjectivity and Identity in Cyberspace. Humans have changed greatly as noted, we have become cyborgs in the sense that we are one with our machines to a point that we are inseparable from them. Yet we still focus on what we see in order to classify each other. Cyberspace takes away the visual; people can no longer see inside our bodies to see the reproductive organs as they can in the Visual Human Project. There is no identity but that created online, the avatar.

Some feminists have gone against this progression, however. They wish to create a united action of women that identifies them as equal to men instead of the erasure of all identities. If gender identities are destroyed, if the organs are no longer visible, then women here have become useless a second time. A patriarchal society should not be able to decide that gender is unnecessary just when women were beginning to make advances in society. Thus, progression is further hindered by conventional beliefs as well as specialist movements which seek to keep the status quo or promote their own agendas instead of embracing the future.

These six articles discuss the Visual Human Project and impose their findings, subjective or otherwise, in a format that clearly defines the past, present, and future of humanity. They explain in detail the evolution of humanity and the recognition that we are both our material bodies and we are not. At this time, we cannot separate from our reproductive organs and yet, what is a sterile man or a sterile woman? They may have the organs but they serve no reproductive purpose in society. Still, we subject them to the same identities because we have grown accustomed to them. Yet one day, our future cyborg selves may determine that such a definition has outlived its usefulness.

References

Balsamo, Anne,"Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women", Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. http://www.stumptuous.com/comps/balsamo.html (accessed 2 Mar 2009)

King, Storm A., "Gender Identity Disorder: Analysis of a Cyberspace Support Group", 1995, http://webpages.charter.net/stormking/gender.html (accessed 1 Mar 2009)

Spittle, Steve, "Gender, Subjectivity and Identity in Cyberspace", 1995, http://www.ucm.es/info/rqtr/biblioteca/ciberespacio%20gltb/Is%20Any%20Body%20Out%20There.pdf (accessed 1 Mar 2009)

Tara and Jui, "Anne Balsamo's Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women",
http://cndls.georgetown.edu/applications/posterTool/index.cfm?fuseaction=poster.display&posterID=3851 (accessed 2 Mar 2009)

U.S. National Library of Medicine, "The Visible Human Project Overview", 2003,
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html (accessed 27 Feb 2009)

Vint, Sherryl, "Both/And: Science Fiction and the Question of Changing Gender",2002, http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020218/both_and.shtml (accessed 1 Mar 2009)

Critical Annotated Webliography question 3

Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imaginations as a monstrous scientist. Analyze some of the ways in which Frankenstein continues to haunt discussions of recent technologies.

Frankenstein is a typical representation of artificial technology. It reflects human beings are striving for more advancing technologies. Humanity is easily seen to be have greater challenged by the rise of artificial technologies. It draws the attention to the fear between humanity and technology and induced different debate over morality and technology. Different discussion about the reproductive technology and other perspective which related to Frankenstein were showed.

In “Biotechnology and the fear of Frankenstein"[1](Campbell, 2003), it mentioned that the story of Frankenstein is always used to discuss about biotechnology. Although Frankenstein is a story wrote in 19th century, it still has high relevance to nowadays even Frankenstein is a story written in 19the century. Campbell (2003) illustrated the difference between “scientific fact” and “science-fiction”. It discussed about 1970s DNA revolution caused the fear of Frankenstein as the myth of Frankenstein are realized not just the fantasy of a novel. As people can change or control the nature of human by biotechnology including DNA or genetic technology, it terrorized the human sense of identity, uniqueness and primacy. At the same time, Campbell pointed out that the ambition of Frankenstein to trace the sources is good, but needed to be careful and caring science which the technology is needed to avoid turning the success into abnormality just like Frankenstein. This paper is contained an in-depth discussion about Frankenstein. It is very useful to see the relationship between biotechnology and the story of Frankenstein, the fear of people about the biotechnology nowadays as Frankenstein myth may become real.

Damyanov[2]explored the influence of the science and technologies on the society with referring to the Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and William Gibson's Neuromancer. It examined that as the information and computer technologies provided human the knowledge and power over nature. As inequalities between human and nature would be increased by modern science, they would destroy the nature and caused different problems such as moral responsibility. Modern technologies such as genetic engineering increased the chances to manipulate life. The source allowed the exploration of the potential dangers and human anxiety in the discussion of another area of technologies. It did not only show the concern in aspects of moral and human nature, but also a new area that revealed the fear of technology with the possible consequence of dependency of technology.

Will technology change humanity, or has it already? [3] This article has provided a critical reflection of the advanced technology has changed the living culture. Humanity was declining towards the human communication and basic human nature. It has proved that the artificial technologies would take the advantage over everything and would be able to control the human life. The technology helped people solve different problems but it also bought out a number of issues have to concern. Things were getting into too complicated while our life are fully occupied by mechanical sense and can’t live without technologies. The human value now was totally relied on technology. It suggested that people have to postpone the rapid development of artificial technologies in order to give a space for people learn and enjoy the success of human evolution. And it reminded people that technology is just a most beneficialoutcome for the society. Then, it also reminded people not to be over controlled by the machine in which people can see the negative influence by the growth of new technologies from this article.

Sack's[4] article was about the question of the human nature and artificial intelligence, showed that the technology is too powerful to duplicate the ‘human nature’. He stated that it was easier for us to define the differences between us and them from artificial beings such as cyborgs and replicants, since machine was supposed not to have emotion and spirit. However, with the development of artificial intelligence, machine was indistinguishable from human. Therefore, human started to worry about the computer acts like a person, and himself as being like a computer. Therefore, Sack used the example of ELIZA to explain how the ‘Wired-style community’ disregarded the man-machine relationship. ELIZA was a computer program could carry on a textual conversation with people by varies replies. Scientists and researches have attempted to merge some human characteristics like the senses, perception and social discourse with computer. As the result, the artificial human perception and sensation of cybernetics would eliminate the artificial / natural boundary and which it challenged human identity.


From Technology vs. Humanity[5], which was written by a psychotherapist --Michael J. Hurd from the Capitalism Magazine, he pointed out that the technology has surpassed our humanity. The technology was designed and gave birth by the human. However, in nowadays, our technology has seems surpassed our humanity. As we were relied in these technologies too much, such as mobile phone, saving medicine, etc. If we didn’t get these things in our daily life, we seem we will not still alive. The Technology was become so powerful and it seems over controlling us. Our daily life was controlled by these technologies. Therefore, at the end of his article, he reminded us we should not rely on the technologies so much as we might lose our humanity if we were so fascinated in it. He believed that our human mind is the best among the others. And we should not let them to over controlling us and we need to talk a balance between the technology and our humanity.


Encountering the Frankenstein Complex [6]discussed the Frankenstein Complex that is the fear towards technology in aspects of robots. It indicated the possible risk of the robots with artificial intelligence. For examples, the harm to humanity, the replacement of the human by machines with artificial intelligence and which may cause that the robot may be out of control. On the other, the author argued that the risk of destroying the humanity may not happen based on three factors such as avoidance of producing the human-level robots and the economic. And he concluded with possibility of the risk of robots and artificial intelligence but a belief of the human life will be inevitably supplemented with robots or machines in future. With the negative impact suggesting inside, the article showed how the fear of technology revealing in other field of technology in robotics and artificial intelligence and thus support the assumptions of Frankenstein haunting the discussion of recent technologies. Moreover, an interesting point was brought out that whether the fear of technology will continue in the discussion of technology if the human life was inevitably full of technology in future and we almost become cyborg in some extents.

In the conclusion, the popular imagination of Frankenstein would continue a controversial argument to the recent technology especially relate to the evolution of artificial technology. Moreover, moral and ethnic issues increasingly bring up to the mainstream topic of technological development and they are gradually being popular to be more concerned and discuss. There are some similarities could be found between Frankenstein and artificial intelligence, but mostly the humanity aspect is still being challenged and constrained.



References:

[1]Campbell, C. S. (2003). Biotechnology and the Fear of Frankenstein. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 12. Retrieved from February 27, 2009, from http://journals.cambridge.org.eproxy2.lib.hku.hk/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=170174&jid=CQH&volumeId=12&issueId=04&aid=170172


[2]Damyanov, Orlin. (1996). Technology and its Dangerous Effects on Nature and Human life as Perceived in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and William Gibson's Neuromancer. Retrieved February 29, 2009, from http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5972/gibson.html

[3]Robin, P. (2005) Will Technology changed humanity, or has it already?. Canada Free Press, Retrieved February 27, 2009, fromhttp://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/robin022805.htm

[4] Sack, Warren. (1998) ‘Artificial Human Nature’. (Retrieved 27 February,2009)
http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/artificial_human_nature.html#fnB11

[5] Michael J. Hurd, Technology vs. Humanity on Capitalism Magazine ( 2001) (retreived 28 February 2009)
http://capmag.com/article.asp?id=152

[6]Lee, McCauley. (2007). Enountering the Frankenstein Complex. Retrieved from February 29, 2009, http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus/AAAISpringSymposium2007/submissions/aaai_ss_07_id06.pdf

critical annotated webliography

In a reading written by Jennifer Gonzalez, “Envisioning cyborg bodies: notes from current research”, it mentions about different kinds of cyborg, some of their parts are electronic or mechanical. It indicates that a notion of cyborg can be related to gender and social status which have been brought out in the past century. The writer states that the cyborg body becomes the historical record of changes in human perception, thus cyborg helps people to understand contemporary society. Besides that, photomontage would be an appropriate channel to view on cyborg, e.g. Dadaist Raoul Hausmann’s assemblags Tete Mechanique. For an advertisement published in 1993, which promotes a fax machine, using the concept of cyborg to promote the speedy of fax machine. It is found that cyborg could also be applied on political sphere, when soldiers would be mechanical; they can use their certain ability in a battle. Lastly, it gives an example of a character in Japan comic book Silent Mobius, and then brings out some questions for people to think about differences between human being and cyborg. From the reading, it indicates that cyborg is not only a topic for technology; however, it can apply on different circumstances and stages during people keep going for development and evolution.

There is a reading discussing about urban discourses entitled as “Cyborg Urbanization: Complexity and Monstrosity in the Contemporary City” by Matthew Gandy, it tries to explore the haphazard presence of cyborg in current urban discourses. Considering cyborg, it is viewed as sophisticated creation in modern society, and it starts to challenge some traditional and original ideas among people. The cyborg figure becomes a sign of militarization in society, as people find that technology is a crucial factor for getting victory in present battles. Also, social welfare is also related to technology, in the coming future, we may face lot of challenges and changes from developing technology and cyborg. It mentions that a creation of cyborg may be viewed as being “post human”, and it also emancipates people between illusion and reality, as cyborg is a combination of robot and human. Some people suggest that cyborg can form a new kind of social interaction when some oppose because it causes some confusion of human thought. Besides that, the reading points out that all people have contributed to the existence of cyborg, because we living in one world, we also help to build up cultural and technical sphere. It helps people to know more about urban discourses and influences from cyborg.

Moreover, in a book, “The Cyborg Experiments the extensions of the body in the media age”, there is a chapter “The Human/ Not Human in the Work of Orlan and Stelarc” from Julie Clarke. It raises a notion of post human which is always linked to cyborg, that a human identity is being “other” than itself, and that self is being changed and mediated by technology. The visual image and of the post-human is both a fact and fiction by its representation but also product of the imaginary. Donna Haraway suggests that trans-human means “across” or “beyond”, it includes transition or interaction between two objects, for example, human and machine. In addition, the images of cyborg appear in many science fiction films such as The Terminator and Westworld, are part human and part machine. When cyborg is getting hurt or die, the loss is not only of the body but also the self. Lastly, it states that the cyborg request the uncanniness associated with body mutation and fragmentation, when they are death, a decomposition of its bodies would be unusual and out of people expectation.

Besides the above reading mentioned about post human, another book, “Posthuman bodies” also focuses on it. It is going to examine the reading, “Terminating Bodies: Toward a Cyborg History of Abortion” written by Carol Mason, it talks about cyborg would be divided into good and bad rising by Andrew Ross and cyborgism from being a myth. There is a novel “He, She, and It”, written by Mary Piercy, which represents good cyborg intensifying identities and boundaries marked by sexual differences. And, in Terminator 2, it also encourages audiences to divide cyborg into good or bad. We have to notice about the color of cyborg as it contains special meanings as well. For example, in Terminator 2, the “fact of blackness” is the most immutable and reasonable signifier of individual embodiment. Afterwards, Connor and Dyson do not only show black or white, female or male, but it represents a certain extent of masculinities and sexualities. They re-produce race, gender and class not according to their own bodies but depend on historical discourses. Moreover, one of main troubles faced by cyborg, according to Haraway, “is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism”. They would be viewed as unfaithful as they are made of the stuff. Lastly, it brings out an idea that a fetus as black when women as white according to terrorist Paul Hill for people to notice abortion as a contest between races.

An article post on The New York Times on 2 March 2003 is talking about influences of media and technology, which focuses on whether violent video games would bring children to be more aggressive or not. It mentions a science research about mobile phone help to train young people having more powerful thumbs, then, it shows some notion of technology and cyborg transforming the body in its own image in present society. The early idea of cyborgian life is about at the Enlightenment, as shown in Gaby Wood’s book, “Edison’s Eve”, he tries to make a talking doll figure. Afterwards, there is a cyberfeminist, Sadie Plant; she also does some digital research. Although many robotic engineers try to create cyborg to be more humanlike, they still face lots of difficulties in doing it. However, there are some examples we should not overlook, for example, cosmetic plastic surgery, chip attached to arm, Superthumbs and Robocop-like visual scanning could be viewed as virtual implants, and people can put it with machine intelligence into human bodies without surgery. It reveals that notion of cyborg is no longer strange to the public; it is going to develop functions and characteristics into human bodies.






Reference
Clarke, J. “The Human/ Not Human in the Work of Orlan and Stelarc” The Cyborg Experiments the extensions of the body in the media age. J. Zylinska. Continuum: London. New York. http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=iWbtdujciTIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=cyborg&ots=ugP9YD18bl&sig=Tm_Hf5cjkcTTAqc7C1Z7WjRiH7U#PPA39,M1 (accessed 3 Mar 2009)
Mason, C. “Terminating Bodies: Toward a Cyborg History of Abortion” Posthuman bodies. Eds. J. Halbertstam and I. Livingston. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=MkQPztA7TTIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA225&dq=cyborg&ots=3uaQvL3b9z&sig=gZzvYr1wdTFluJOvk3z7pAzPM6g#PPA240,M1 (accessed 3 Mar 2009)
Gandy, M. “Cyborg Urbanization: Complexity and Monstrosity in the Contemporary City” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Vol. 29.1. Mar. 2005: 26-49. http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk:8080/print-version/about-the-department/people/academics/matthew-gandy/files/pdf1.pdf (accessed 3 Mar 2009)
Gonzalez, J. “Envisioning cyborg bodies: notes from current research” Maryflanagan
http://www.maryflanagan.com/private/essays/gonzalez01.pdf (accessed 3 Mar 2009)
Talbot, M. “The Way we live now: 6-15-03; My Son, the Cyborg” The New York Times 15.6 (2003).
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905EFDC1339F936A25755C0A9659C8B63&scp=5&sq=cyborg&st=cse (accessed 3 Mar 2009)

CRITICAL ANNOTATED WEBLIOGRAPHY

Anne Balsamo claims that ‘Cyborgs are hybrid entities that are neither wholly technological nor completely organic, which means that the cyborg has the potential not only to disrupt persistent dualisms that set the natural body in opposition to the technologically recrafted body, but also to refashion our thinking. In short, cyborg is still a transgressive figure’[1] . The major resource that I used to locate sources was the search engine Google, especially the Google Scholar.

Reading Cybogs, writing Feminism is one of the charters of Technologies of the Gender Body. It is a useful article which was written by Anne Marie Balsamo, the writer of the above argument. This article begins with a review of famous cyborgs in popular culture. Balsamo states that “Cyborg bodies are definitionally transgressive of the dominant culture order, not so much because of their ‘constructed’ nature, but rather because of indeterminacy of their hybrid design”[2]. The statement strongly points out that the ‘hybrid design’ is an important reason for the cyborg’s transgressive figure. Cyborg also provides a framework for studying gender identity. The article reread Michel Foucault through various feminist studies of the historical construction of the gendered body. Then, in the second part of the article she draws on Norbert Wiender’s theory of cybernetics and Marshall Mcluhan’s media analysis to discuss the role of the female body in one well-known account of the postmodern body. And finally, she concludes with a discussion of a range of feminist scholarship on the body that establishes the importance of maintaining an emphasis on the notion of a material body by promoting a gendered body that has been not simply material but rather a hybrid construction of materiality and discourse. Balsamo also discusses works by Donna Haraway, Ruth Bleier, and Paula Treichler, who in different ways investigate how the material female body is actually constructed by and within discourse to support the argument.

In Rene Munnik’s Donna Haraway: Cyborgs for earthly Survival?, she first discusses Donna Jeanne Haraway’s article, which entitled “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s”. Haraway provides a definition of cyborg, which is “a bionic being, partly human and partly robot—a being in which the border between nature and culture is blurred in a body that mingles flesh and titanium”[3]. The blurred boundaries for the hybrid design of cyborg made it become transgressive. By the same time, Haraway proposes that people should imagine cyborgs as beings that bourdaries, bastardizations of humans and technology, which was already the view of Clynes, Kline, and Minsky[4]. After that Rene Munnik mentioned cyborgs are transgressive of boundaries, which corrupt beings and chimerical monsters. And Cyborgs are not unambiguously identifiable as “man” or “woman,” “nature” or “culture”, “human” or “machine”. This point was expressed with reference to language. Finally she discusses some political analysis of Haraway’s article. This article is useful for answering the guiding question, as the writer discuss transgressive boundaries of cyborg by analysis Donna Haraway’s earlier article.

Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk The book first discuss what a cyborg is and which is clear that an overriding theme in the writings of William Gibson, McHale, Csicsery-Ronay and a number of contributions to McCaffrey is the assumption that the boundaries between subjects, their bodies and the ‘outside world’ are being radically reconfigured[5]. That means the analytical categories derive from the fundamental division between technology and nature, are in danger of dissolving, the categories of the biological, the technological, the natural, the artificial and the human are beginning to blur. These contributions strongly support the argument which I choose for this assignment. The author argues that it is the extent and complexity of the changes from the mainstreaming of cosmetic surgery, also rise of biotechnology, genetic engineering and nanotechnology, which have led some to predict that the next generation could well be the last of ‘pure’ humans. And something worried the author is that if there is an increasing acceptance of cosmetic surgery by consumers and other associated technological interventions to modify the body, over the last decade are at all indicative of future trends, then the next 50 years will see even more radical plastic surgery, computer-chip brain implants and gene splicing become routine[6]. The transformation of body was usually being considered when discussing the topic of cyborg and its transgressive figure.

In Robbie Davis-Floyd and Joseph Dumit’s Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots Cyborg Babies is an exploration of the increasingly pervasive role of technology in how children are brought into and raised in our society. From fetuses scanned ultrasonically to computer hackers in daycare, contemporary children are being rendered cyborg by their immersion in technoculture. Besides, a range of perspectives are heard, from cultural anthropologists to social critics, as they offer cutting-edge critiques and personal narratives of how, as we are faced with reproductive choices connected directly with technologies. The writers try to discuss some of the ways in which North American women may use the “transgressed boundaries and potent fusions” of ultrasound’s cybory fetus to reflect on and rework their experiences of pregnancy[7]. The article about cybory babies shows that the new technology may reflect the transgressive figure of cyborgs, either using the technology to reproduce baby, or a man become pregnancy. Nowadays, we often have trouble gaining perspective on our own cultural co-dependency with these similar technologies.

Cyborg As Cyberbody is an article similarly to ‘Cyborg Babies’, Chritiane Paul points out that the fusion of man and machine has reached new level today. We must be aware that in this information age or digital networked society, the body and the identity have become a much-discussed topic. Some conflicting ideas, such as man vs. machine and its relation to evolution vs. design was presented in the article. Besides, the information presented which proved to be good writing material for addressing the issue of boundaries and the whole concept of identity; it is because interaction between man and machine with our ever increasing dependency on these technological devices is responsible for dissolving the very borders which separate machines from humans. And hence, thinking whether computers are designed for helping us or making us closer to either becoming or have already to a certain extent become cyborys. Here we also need to consider the transgressive boundaries of man and machine body which is still confusing people.

In Computers and the Communication of Gender, Lawley uses the essay to discuss the topics of computer and gender. She tries to examine the ways in which our definitions of “woman” and “man” are shifting in the new communication environment. It is possible to use new theoretical perspectives on the shifting boundaries of gender definitions to rethink a previously deterministic view of the effect of new technologies on society, and particularly the effect of those technologies on women[8]. She points out that the computerized communication systems allow women to escape boundaries and categories which have constrained activities and their identities in the past. In Lawley’s essay, few authors have been chosen to share Haraway’s vision of a re-gendered world based on the merging of biology and technology. It can be seen, gender is one of the aspects that one may consider when discuss cyborg.

All of the sources collated are in agreement with Anne Balsamo’s statement that cyborg is still a transgressive figure, because they are hybrids of machine and organism, which blur its boundary.

NOTES:
[1] Anne Marie Balsamo, “Reading Cybogs, writing Feminism,” in Technologies of the Gender Body, 1996, p.11. Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, < id="lkr11mXPYKEC&printsec=" hl="zh-TW">.
[2] ibid.
[3] Rene Munnik, “Donna Haraway: Cyborgs for earthly Survival?,” in American Philosophy of technology, 2001, p.95. Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, .
[4] ibid., p.103.
[5] Mike Featherstone, Roger Burrows, Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk, 1995, p.3. Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, < id="wjtm5I1XUd8C&hl=">.
[6] ibid., p.4.
[7] Robbie Davis-Floyd, Joseph Dumit, Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots, 1998, p.107. Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, < id="jHyMOknhegEC&printsec=" hl="zh-TW#PPA1941,M1">.
[8] Elizabeth Lane Lawley, Computers and the Communication of Gender, 1993, Google books online, retrieved 1 March 2009, <>.

Webliography:

Anne Marie Balsamo, “Reading Cybogs, writing Feminism,” in Technologies of the Gender Body, 1996, Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, http://books.google.com/books?id=lkr11mXPYKEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=zh-TW

Elizabeth Lane Lawley, Computers and the Communication of Gender, 1993, Google books online, retrieved 1 March 2009, http://www.itcs.com/elawley/gender.html

Mike Featherstone, Roger Burrows, Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk, 1995, Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, http://books.google.com/books?id=wjtm5I1XUd8C&hl=zh-TW

Rene Munnik, “Donna Haraway: Cyborgs for earthly Survival?,” in American Philosophy of technology, 2001, Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=nnBLgPN1wYoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA95&dq=cyborgs+is+a+transgressive+figure&ots=G6nCNDw2nU&sig=-N16fh7DbvdXkZdDeqxRFgoYaXg#PPA95,M1

Robbie Davis-Floyd, Joseph Dumit, Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots, 1998, Google books online, retrieved 28 February 2009, http://books.google.com/books?id=jHyMOknhegEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=zh-TW#PPA1941,M1

CRITICAL ANNOTATED WEBLIOGRAPHY ~Q3

Guiding Questions:
Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous
scientist. Analyze some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussions of recent technologies.

Frankenstein was named by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel in 1818. She talked about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who collect different part of dead body and recombination that. Also Frankenstein created life for that and make it like a men who have more powerful. After that, people have tended to use “Frankenstein” to describe scientist. And Frankenstein as an elements infused in different types of films, stories etc. Also, public use to describe something which infuse scientist especially for technologies. Therefore I will find some case to analyze Frankenstein discussions of recent technologies in some of the ways.

In the article of The Curse of Frankenstein, Robert is talking about Genetic Foods. He argues that Genetic food as a Frankenstein. For many years, people are started arguing the harms for human being caused by the genetic foods. Nowadays, the FDA set up new regulations to restrict and monitor these kinds of foods. Started from baby-bomb, the food production became cant fulfill populations need. Thus made scientist and the farmer had new idea to modify the crops and livestock gene to make a larger gain for the fasting food needs. However, some people are just considered how harm did the genetics foods will affect human being body. Food is the most importance factory for human to maintain the life, thus all argue started have a large supporter to made the genetic modify must stop for ensure people’s health because of lack of limitations and restriction for this kinds of foods. Even though the FDA listed the regulations for restricted these kinds of food, however some people are still not willing to choose these kinds of the genetic food. This is because they do not know the sciences and technologies well and they afraid this is a kind of food. It is time to expose and reject the primitive fear of technology that lurks behind the attack on genetically modified foods.

Also, I find out the other one article Baby cloning: a Frankenstein experiment or the answer to many which is talking about baby cloning for some couple who have problem of male sterility.Since there are some argue of that, Severino Antinori an Italian professor points out scientific feats scientific feats not as a Frankenstein experiment, but as practical solution to the problem of male infertility. He believes that cloning may be a method to solve the problem of male infertility and help them have an ordinary child who is unique individual. Also, he thinks that cloning as a fruitful scientific to help sterility couple to have a child which they want. However, this idea was bans in some countries because of legislation. So he finds out some case to support his views such as a couple who live in Monifieth they want to have a girl to replace "the female dimension in their family" because of cloning can help them to select the sex of their baby. Besides that, in the article it also mentions that Professor Antinori had succeeded helping a 62 year-old women have a baby in 1994. However, it was query by Lord Robert Winston the fertility expert. And regional organizer also against cloning baby because it will be brings out a lot of ethical and medical problems.

Besides that, some people will reference to “Frankenstein” when they hear some new technology which challenges our traditional ideas of human such as organ transplants, genetic engineering or cloning. For those situations, Harold the director of National Institutes of Health points out some views in the article of Promise and Peril "They may come up with a disease that can't be cured, even a monster. Is this the answer to Dr. Frankenstein's dream?" In the article, it mention that how to find out the balance of science and medicine, animal organs in humans, Human Dissection etc between science research and the fears from Mary Shelley’s novel.. Harold believes that transplantation of tissue and dissected human corpses are use for medical research which is different of Victor Frankenstein who is a doctor in Mary Shelley’s novel. Also, technicians sliced helps us know more about our body and it is useful for teach anatomy and surgical techniques. However, those technologies also brings out some public fears such as the case of cloned sheep—Dolly it make public concern more about consequences of cloning and the case of Unresolved Risks in transmittal of animal viruses to humans.

Technologies out of control and will harms human? In the article of "You are my creator, but I am your master...." -- Frankenstein’s monster, Frankenstein in the University by Luke Femandez, he had some views against on these issues especially on the academic events. As the new technologies developed and it helps a lot for helping people to education in the different ways, such like to give lesson by internet, the distance learning. All these methods are based by through the new media. This made people can be learnt more convenience but it also caused problem on the technology support. Because of we enjoy all these soft media but it let us lack of interact to the other learners and the teachers. These phenomenons just look likes we had done something with a robot. In case when the robot becomes with problem, we have to hold on out studies. In the meantime, the technologies support also being controlled by the systems vendor, as the learning systems are designed by this party, the knowledge and the skills are all set up and maintained by them. It means our technology, our working, our learning and our life shall be controlled of their labor.

As thinking of our daily life, the new technology affects us a lot everywhere and it caused a lot of the problem thereby from the war to religion, for the life style to the environment. Form the article of The Advocates of Technophobia; it mentioned the issue as well. The new technology limited human’s developing on different way caused by the region and the sources. For some countries, they can use a lot of amount of sources to develop the technology for improve he life, but for some others, they still struggle for the basic need. The technology cause unfair for the world but nobody can change it as the power decided everything at this moment. Disease is the only thing whom is fair for every one, but the technology had broken it as well due as some countries can develop new method for remedy it but not for all. We are now seeking the equal world for humans, thus the technology should not be the threat for restrict the forward step.




Reference

Alan Caruba, The Advocates of Technophobia
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3833 (Accessed 3 March 2009)

Harold E. Varmus, M.D, Promise and Peril "They may come up with a disease that can't be cured, even a monster. Is this the answer to Dr. Frankenstein's dream?"
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/frankenstein/frank_promise.html(Accessed 3 March 2009)

Luke Fernandez, "You are my creator, but I am your master...." -- Frankenstein’s monster, Frankenstein in the University.
http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2008/05/Frankenstein-in-the-University.aspx?Page=1 (Accessed 3 March 2009)
Robert W. Tracinski, The Curse of Frankenstein It’s time for the villagers to torch the “Frankenfood”myth http://www.capitalismcenter.org/ProTech/Archives/Curse_of_Frankenstein.htm(Accessed 3 March 2009)
Sarah-Kate Templeton, Baby cloning: a Frankenstein experiment or the answer too many
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20010311/ai_n13956370(Accessed 3 March 2009)

Critical Annotated Webliography Q.3

Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyse some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussions of recent technologies.

Does anyone notice in what extent the technology affect to us? Think about what if we don’t have mobile phone one day? We would probably feel insecure and nervous as if we do not exist that day. And, Frankenstein is a classic sci-fiction novel, boosting our imagination of the effect in our technological life. Here are five writings which help us to think about the horror of technologies in different aspects: politics, sciences, ethics, humanities, futures. Nearly, all of these approaches except sciences required us to criticize the development of technology for the sake of avoiding technology disordered while we highly depend on it. The issues of ‘democracy’, ‘human cloning’, ‘genetic food’, ‘dehumanization’, and ‘AI’ would be discussed, which told us to take it seriously without naïve mind. It is because the earlier we sense the consequences of Frankenstein; the more we could do to prevent it.

According to Shari Poen’s article, Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein’s Problem (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology),
we could see his emphasize on the technology as a metaphor of ‘tools’ have too much ‘power’ to affect our view of looking the world. We are living in a ‘techno-culture’, in which it does not mean that we should take a negative view of the emergence of technology, but need to pay attention to the way technology would arrange our lives unpredictably. Frankenstein is a creation that symbolize the technologies that could not receive the ‘sufficient care’ just like we use it without critical and analysis manners. Besides, he questioned about whether the democracy could continue to be exist in the lacking of ‘critical technological citizenship’. The emerging of ‘deskilling’ and ‘surveillance’ would cause, although technology could fulfill our wants, it could not wholly free us without ‘democratic practices’. It has been suggested that the real monster is not Frankenstein (technology), but the evil mind that allows these happen. To avoid this, we are required to critically deal with the ‘noir’ side of technology with ‘adult’ mind of using it.

There are a lot of upcoming technologies generating debate on their usage and existence in human’s living or even alters our fate. In the article of The Curse of Frankenstein has revealed different stand point of creation of genetic food, but it tends to support the invention of it. It has been stigmatized by environment activists as “Frank food”, the word is embodied from Frankenstein, which closely relates the story of Mary Shelly about the fear of the scientist monster. The author hereby tends to emphasis this is just a ‘myth’ of Frankenstein to give an excuse for the science and technology haters. There are several negative discourses about these foods in no evident supports or most of them were unknown. But, environmentalists have stood firm to their sense of the altered foods would cause harm to us and the environment under the ‘genetic manipulation’. In order to lessen the fear of the science and technology, FDA imposed rules to reassuring the safety of genetic food. Actually, the invention of this technology helps much in farming. In the perspective of farmers, this technology is a magic in dealing with the difficulties of harvesting. Therefore, a total rejection of the primitive fear of technology of genetic foods is needed rather than constant regulations on biotechnology in ‘anti-science campaign’.

However, the emergence of advance technologies is not actually a good thing. It has been argued that the medical technology in the deepest level could be seen as the way to the process of ‘dehumanization’. It has been claimed that one of the ‘human qualities’ is the decision to death. In the writing of Dehumanization, the author alleged the medical technology would dehumanize four basic human abilities, including ‘the inherent of worth in being human’, ‘the uniqueness of the individual’, ‘the freedom to act and the ability to make decisions’, and ‘the equality of status’. Human is treated as an ‘object’ under the ‘medicalization’ when he is dying. Sometimes, we could not be seen as individuals, instead of it, we are cyborg, because some patients should rely on the ‘life-sustaining machine’. It just likes the scientist monster ‘Frankenstein’ that we could not have a very clear distinction. There has been a ‘death-denying culture’ boosted with the development of these ‘impersonal systems’ to manage our health.

In the writing of Thinking Through the Ethics of Cloning, Dr. James F. Drane collects different ethical interpretations of different ethical experts on this big ethical issue, human cloning. But his comment on it is not focus on the rightness of cloning but the fact of the possibility of both good and evil of human being. The fear of evil human attitudes is the main concern. Here are ethicists who speak for their view on this issue. One of the ethicists, literary ethicists has taken a critical stand point on cloning, and Frankenstein is the first novel which provides the negative assessment on it. Their ethical view point on cloning are reflected in the literature works, stated that it is ‘unnatural’. And other ethicists like religion and government have the same reflection with literature. Pope’s view has already rejected any use of technology which interferes with sexual reproduction within marriage. However, scientists and business take optimistic view of the cloning. They suggested many advantages of cloning on either view of protect diseases or business prospects. The most fairness commentary should be addressed to bioethicists, setting strict guidelines on both cell genes intervened on human beings and human cloning. This genetic technology raised us the questions on ethics of human being.

Eventually, I would like to predict that consequences of long-term advancements of technology by analysis the history of technology which affects our life deeply. In Frankenstein of the Future, Alison Burns has a critical analysis on the future of human life in the technological world. He emphasizes what human do with technology is a ‘blind’ act. The creation of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ could lead the opening of a ‘Pandora’s box of monstrosities’ in which just like Victor Frankenstein did with his monster. The author argued that it causes serious result if the machines are given the ability to ‘learn’. He used the sci-fiction ‘Matrix’ to illustrate the uncontrollable result of technology dominate the world. Also, AI was symbolized as ‘children’ and we human as ‘parent’ who has the responsibility to teach them. Nor bearing a child, or bearing a more destructive and powerful child, AI is easy. By looking backward of the history of technology development, from 1940’s invention of first computer to today’s system which can imitate human thought, the ability of the machine has transcended human, like ‘best human chess player’. Nowadays, we depend on ‘smart machines’ which could replace jobs of human , this ‘dependence’ is not revealing our power to master them, but the hidden shocks it bring to life.

There will be a rapid growth of advance technology which has been predicted. We somehow become cyborgs, just like the nature of Frankenstein because of certain reliance on technology; gradually ‘techno-culture’ and ‘death-denying culture’ are boosted. Someone would think Frankenstein is a legend in which there are no evidence to prove it, even though technologies help us in many ways, there are a lot of bad speech has been discussed in the level of ethics, politics, humanities and futures. The common view that came up with is that we should be considerate its effects on our future life. The fear of Frankenstein is not because of the advance technology, but the bad intentions of the human who use it.



References:

Shari, Poen. (1998). 'Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein’s Problem' (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology)
http://www.viterbo.edu/analytic/Vol%2019%20no.%201/thinking%20through%20tecnology.pdf (accessed 1 March 2009)

Tracinski, Robert W. 'The Curse of Frankenstein' http://www.capitalismcenter.org/ProTech/Archives/Curse_of_Frankenstein.htm (accessed 1 March 2009)

(2007). 'Dehumanization' http://www.deathreference.com/Da-Em/Dehumanization.html (accessed 1 March 2009)

Drane, James F. (2002). 'Thinking Through the Ethics of Cloning'
http://www.uchile.cl/bioetica/doc/think.htm (accessed 28 February 2009)

Burns, Alisa. (2002). 'Frankenstein of the Future' http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/frank.comment4.html (accessed 1 March 2009)

Critical Annotated Webliography - Q.3

Q3. Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyse some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussion of recent technologies.

Victor Frankenstein, as a scientist who created the monster Frankenstein, has the unrealistic and absurd imagination on the biotechnology. It is hard to imagine a dead body with separate organs can have vitality through the galvanization. Recent technologies like the genetic engineering, human cloning and other scientific contributions are inspired by this monstrous idea. However, Victor’s failure of controlling Frankenstein has raised people’s attention on the fear of technology, alerting them the dangerous lurking in the shadow of technology.

First, it is needed to understand what the fear is. The article Technophobia: A disease in disguise gives a clear concept of how people are getting “fear of technology or technological devices”. The author has used daily examples to illustrate the inseparability between human and technologies, such as the frequent use of computer and pagers. Human will feel bushed with technology when they cannot follow the rapid development of technologies. Their psychology will be imbalanced and the human nature will be altered after suffering from technophobia. The author has also concisely listed out some symptoms of technophobia, including that people will find excuses the needless of new technologies and argue against the transformation of technologies.

To have a further discussion on fear, Daniel Chandler’s article Fear of losing control particularly calls in question on the position between human and technologies as well as emphasizes the seriousness on the outcome of losing control of technologies. He has mentioned the relationship between human and machine is being confused. The reason human feel fear is from the “possible harm that from machinery out of control”, which has “double aspect of good/harm”, just like fire can give warm to people but burn them as well. Chandler has used some movies to give concrete explanation on the loss of control. For example, the robots appeared in the film Westworld are “out of control for no apparent reason”. In A Space Odyssey, the computer has some abnormal behaviors that it has killed the human under its own decision making. From these examples Chandler clearly gives rise to the concern of the future technology.

Alisa Burns has elaborated the risks of technology in her article Frankenstein of the Future. Unlike Chandler’s view, Burns raises that the dangerous part of technology is the scientist blindly requests for “bring to life” as well as creates something that can threat the whole universe without careful consideration. She has used Victor Frankenstein to explain technologies are something with unexpected and uncontrolled consequences. But the most fearsome Burns emphasizes is that the machines “are indicating the ability to learn”. She mentions Artificial Intelligence, the system that can imitate human thinking, understand what people talk about and compete with human, to warn that scientists underestimate the system. She uses the movie Matrix as an example, illustrating the serious consequence of artificial intelligence transcend human intelligence, which the former one takes control of the human at the end.

The article Stem Cells and Human Cloning: The Postmodern Prometheus gives a positive perspective on providing a useful background information of the evolvement of human reproduction and the process of technological fertilization of human egg cells, which proves that science can achieve the “Frankenstein-like event”. The discovery of molecular biology helps investigation on cell development and study the possibility between fertilized egg and human body cell. The less unlikeness between body cell and fertilized egg push biotechnology to an upper level. The article then cites the instance of Louise Brown, the first baby who was born via in vitro fertilization, to give a strong support on assisted reproduction. In further investigation, the transgenic food and animals are invented as well. The article also lists out different arguments on assisted production and human production. For example, Professor Leon Kass is against assisted reproduction as children become artifacts.

Dave Weldon’s perspective is counter to human cloning. In his article Why Human Cloning Must Be Banned Now, it gives a clear explanation on the violation of human cloning. He has noted the reasons of banning research and reproductive cloning in ethical angle. First, research cloning may need to sacrifice the people live in order to see the result, which is immoral. Second, human is being treated as a tool to help the scientist to accomplish their experiment, which is unethical as well. Finally, the scientists will take advantage of women in the research cloning process. Since those scientists need a great number of women’s eggs for creating cloned embryos, the injection of superovulatory drugs into women’s bodies are needed. Infertile will be the extreme side effect. Weldon’s fear comes from these predictable outcomes. Besides, he also provides biological explanation on the danger of human cloning. He mentioned that some “undetectable but harmful genetic abnormalities” will torment the human clones, which do not have possible method to solve this problem in the present. To directly solve the problem, Weldon’s suggestion on terminating “the creation of cloned embryos” is useful for considering the possible solution on forbidding the reproductive cloning in order to relieve the fear.

The article Will Frankenfood Save the Planet? is helpful to make argument on biotechnology in different aspects. The author Jonathan Rauch first uses examples to illustrate the economic and technological advantages of transgenic crops for those farmers, helping them to have huge production and become affordable on the massive market demand. “The selective transfer of genes from one organism to another” allows the scientists cultivate the crops without the affection of soil quality or plants’ habit. Rauch then uses statistics to points out the environmental damage made by the transgenic crops, especially the habitat destruction. Because of the profitability, the farmers extended their farmland by felling the forest. The effect is indirect but powerful.

Bouneith Inejnema has used biological angle to expose the dangers of genetically-modified (GM) food by using research in his article Frankenstein Foods Cause organ Abnormalities. He has stated the current situation inside the market. With the massive production of GM food, the consumers cannot make differentiation between the products. Although GM producers, like Monsanto, declare that GM food do not endanger human health, a research have exposed the diverse outcome after eating it. The report has presented that “rats fed genetically modified com had smaller kidneys and variation in their blood composition”, which supposed to happen on human body as well. The author also mentioned that those foods cannot be safe even they have been tested on animals. The fear showing in here related to the harm of human health brought by technology.

From the articles, it can see the interrelation between Frankenstein, human and technology. It is true that science and technology have significant contribution on biotechnological development. However, the negative outcome of Frankenstein food and human cloning has raised people’s attention on the Frankenstein myth, elaborating the fear of technology and its loss of control. Apart from the biotechnological issues, the ethical problem is also an important aspect in the discussion. Excessive invention and dependence on technology will unbalance the nature and artificial practice. It is essential for the human to utilize the technology appropriately.

References:

Alisa Burns “Frankenstein of the Future”. http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/frank.comment4.html (accessed 26 February 2009)

Bouneith Inejnema “Frankenstein Foods Cause organ Abnormalities”. http://www.theearthcenter.org/ssgmfoodsorgans.html (accessed 25 February 2009)

Daniel Chandler “Fear of losing control”. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/SF/sf04.html (accessed 26 February 2009)

Dave Weldon “Why Human Cloning Must Be Banned Now”. http://www.cbhd.org/resources/cloning/weldon_2002-spring.htm (accessed 26 February 2009)

Jonathan Rauch “Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?”. http://www.uri.edu/mind/Frankenfood%202%20October%202003%20Atlantic%20Monthly.pdf (accessed 25 February 2009)

Samrat Ray (2008) “Technophobia: A disease in disguise”. http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=148360 (accessed 26 February 2009)

“Stem Cells and Human Cloning: The Postmodern Prometheus”. http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol114/Chap14/clone.html (accessed 25 February 2009)

Critical Annotated Webliography_Q.2

Question 2: ‘When the body is fractured into organs, fluids, and genetic codes, what happens to gender identity?’ (Balsamo). Discuss some of the issues raised by the Visible Human Project about the embodiment gender, race and class.

The Visible Human Project (VHP) is originally a medical and scientific project. However, this guiding question requires something different which is about the issues of embodiment gender, race and class. From the question by Balsamo, it shows that how the gender identity will be once the body is being fragmented. The relevant resources about VHP which is being discussed in this track are mainly based on feminism. By the feminist articles, some of them show how they interpret and understand the issues of race and class raised by the VHP. Here they are in the following,

Firstly, the content of the Visual Human Project (VHP) is being illustrated into several parts in ‘The Visible Human Project: Data into Flesh, Flesh into Data’. It is well for providing some background information for the discussion topic since it draws heavily on talking about the history and the process of how a cadaver to become visualized in the computer screen. It offers the link directly to visiting the Visible Human Project in The National Library of Medicine website. Also, it mentioned that the first person who was willing to donate the body for the study was a male prisoner and the second one is a female who is dead by heart attack. Besides these historical backgrounds, it gives about some scientific methods in managing the cadaver such as the exact think of length for the cadaver that being cut. Garry suggests that this project reinforced the concept of life and takes the sexual variations into account but the authors disagree with it as it is not effective enough to eliminate the heterogeneity. This article provides a transition from the background information to the aspect of gender and easily for people to have further and deeper discussion on this topic.

The VHP is being discussed in relation to the feminist issue within the article – ‘Wild Science: Reading Feminism, Medicine and the Media’ by Janine Marchessault. By using three main parts which are the Corporeal Map, Genetic Codifications and Clinical Practice, the author reveal the ideas towards these issues from the perspective of feminist media studies. The key point from the ‘Corporeal Maps’ can be picked up. It illustrates and pays much attention in the cadaver that is being represented by the media in a scientific way which is being fragmented such as the breasts and uteruses in women's bodies. The increase in the fragmentation of the dead female body shows the continuity of subordination of women’s role within the society and people paid no concern for the western women. It also helps to challenge the fragmentations of women in the cyber world. Since it is being exemplified as institutions and practices and emphasized heavily on political and social issues by the scientific way of representation. These ideas give some good supporting on how the gender issue raised by the VHP and help with developing the body part of the whole essay.

In the third article, ‘Notes on the Political Condition of Cyberfeminism’ by Faith Wilding and Critical Art Ensemble provides some supporting resources to talk about the gender issue much deeper and being as a transition to talk about the class. One of the supporting evident is that the part of the cyberfeminism affect the society in a political and economical way by several changes in technology ( the Visible Human Project is one of the examples) can be well in illustrating the change in gender. Also, it also mentions how the female to react to these the phenomenon of the technological changes. The point is useful to be marked that the gender needs to be diversified because of the gender struggle in the cyberspace. And also the invasion of cyberfeminist into various technology cracked down the myth of male dominate within society. Women are liberated because of the technoworld. It even benefit the women from subversion of the original gender structure. It implied that the class of women increased and advantaged by the increase in occurance in cyberspace and the VHP is one of the examples. As mentioned, these advantages are gained through the class, cultural and the race position. So, this article can be functioned as a transition paragraph from discussing about gender into the class.

To have further discussion towards the class struggle between male and female, this article, ‘Iatrogenic Permutations: From Digital Genesis to the Artificial Other’ by Tama Leaver, tries to explain the implications behind the Project in the feminist perspective. Regarding this article, the novel Permutation City and The Visible Human Project are being analyzed comparatively in order to figure out their common factors and the important theme share among the theme. The useful part is that Sarah Kember suggested that the VHP should be viewed as the recreation of the Eve and Adam in cyberspace. The first visible human female is being sent to the Project shows that the productivity of women is the same as male in the aspect of the male-dominated medical science. An inspiration can be got from this article as the author brings up a good question which can inspire me to have further research on the guiding question. The question that is being raised it that the questioning of human subjectivity identity and embodiment under the new biomedical and technological advances. So, this article indicates the new aspect on discussing the increase in the female status in the technology advancement.

The ‘Fractured identities’ in ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ by Donna Haraway can well be used in demonstrating well in the race issue raised by the VHP. It is related to the point mentioned by the author in this article that is she politically overthrow the boundary by the using the cyborg hybridty in order to strive for the ‘fairness’ in the identity. As the VHP established and kept running in America, this is a place where the seriousness of racism occurs. The cadavers used in the Project are both Caucasians in both genders. She suggested ‘Women’ is being constructed and are controlled tightly by colonialised, patriarchal and capitalized society. In the article, from the concept of ‘women of colour’ by Chela Sandoval which is mentioned in this article shows us that the black women is still being discriminated. It is because the theory of the anti-colonialism. It implied black women have no say as all the feminists are Caucasians. Not only does the author rejecting the patriarchal society, but also the Caucasians’ feminism. She indicates that the ambiguity between the advancement of biology and technology (the VHP) which causes the world is being signified. Haraway suggested that ‘we’ are cyborg and only cyborg functions as a tool to get rid of the integrity of the patriarchal society and it will hybridize. This article is a very useful resources in order to challenge the possible race issue raised by the Project by the arguments made by Haraway on the above.

In short, these five critical articles and journals are the useful and relevant resources as far after other many irrelevant resources are being filtered. These 5 resources could be found based on the further research on some resources that mentioned little about the VHP in the aspect of culture studies and women’s studies. Five of them can be able to support the guiding question about the 3 aspects raised by the VHP.

Bibliography

Catherine, Waldby. (1996) ‘The Visible Human Project: Data into Flesh, Flesh into Data’ Communications Studies, Murdoch University, http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/wildbiol1.html. (accessed 27th Feb 2009).

Donna, Haraway. (2008) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’. European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communications Division. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/haraway/haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto.html . (accessed 1st March 2009).

Faith, Wilding. & Critical Art Ensemble. ‘Notes on the Political Condition of Cyberfeminism’ Critical Art Ensemble, http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors/wildingtext.html (accessed 26th Feb 2009).

Janine, Marchessault. & Sawchuk, Kim. (2002) ‘Wild Science: Reading Feminism, Medicine and the Media’ Canadian Journal of Communication. Vol 27, No 4 (2002).http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1334/1391 (accessed 1st March 2009).

Tama, Leaver. (2004) ‘Iatrogenic Permutations: From Digital Genesis to the Article Other’ Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 41, No.3 (2004). http://www.tamaleaver.net/cv/TL_CLS_41.pdf (accessed 1st March 2009).

Living with Frankenstein?

Topic:
Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyse some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussions of recent technologies.

Frankenstein was created by a scientist by using dead animal organs, corpse limbs and dead brain to build its body. It was revived by lightning which violated the natural order to create a life form. It became a monster and had its freewill to find means to meet its ends. It had its own thought to kill his creator and became a killer. This idea was developed in the 19th century from the book written by Mary Shelley. From then on, human beings became doubtful to the development of technologies and aroused a lot of worries about new technologies.

Technophobia can be defined as the fear and dislike of technologies by human beings. No one can consider or bear the consequences brings to our world towards the development of technologies. According to the article titled “Frankenstein in the University,” the author mentioned that in modern days, we are encountering technologies in a daily bases. Although, we think that we can fully control our technologies, there are still a lot of uncertainties. For example, we do not know when our computer will break down and cause data loss. As we are now relying so much on technologies, there is a fear of technological determinism. It means that technologies could determine our lives and it also means that we could not survive without technologies. The author used online distance learning and software as examples to elaborate his point of view. The operation of an online course and information system require the use of technologies. If the technologies become unavailable, the operations will halt. To put it into our daily lives, for example, to cure serious illness, we have no alternatives but to rely on technologies to fight against disease and survive. It could easily put us into a dilemma between technophobia and reliance of technology.

An article written by Shari Popen titled “Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein’s Problem” mentioned about the fear of development of new technologies. In this article, the author points out that the use of technologies is having goods and bads. First of all, the article is about the changing of our identity and the replacement of human labors by cyborg technologies. Secondly, the writer concerns that human beings are now highly depend on technologies and not care about how technologies have shaped our lives. And, therefore, a series of questions are asked by the author which are concerning the technologies, for example, the development of artificial intelligence(AI) which allows computer to think. If computers really thought and human were not paying attention to them, it created risk because computers could have dominated our planet and human could extinct. Then, the development of technologies might be similar to the science fiction genre film Terminator which was a story in the 1980s showing the machineries dominated the world and sought human as their major enemy. Such concerns are not ungrounded as we could not fully control our new technologies and we do not know the consequences of such development. The cloning technology can be an example as it creates a lot of questions.

Dolly the sheep was the first successfully cloned mammals and she was announced to the world in 1997. From the two articles titled: “Experts detail obstacles to human cloning” and “Re-Engineering the Human: New Reproductive Technologies and the Specter of Frankenstein,” both mentions about Dolly the Sheep as an advance in human bio-technology. However, there is a question on her age because she was cloned from the cell of a mature sheep. Her genes may automatically program her age as a six years old mature sheep which was the same as the mother sheep. The US Government had quickly response to this issue and recommended law should be enforced to prevent the abuse of cloning technology. From then on, Genetic engineering then becomes an important issue discussed by scientists. Many scientists are arguing about the cloning of human. Most of them reject the cloning of human as cloning violates the natural order as the cells of the clones are identically the same as the originally existing person. It creates a moral problem. Moreover, the development of the clones has had a lot of uncertainties because scientific experiments could not foresee the consequences. Only one question was answered when Dolly the sheep died in 2003 in her early age proved that there were a lot of unexpected results in cloning.

Although, the cloning of human is restricted, the artificial creation of animals is still carrying on. In the article by Dr. Wayne Garland which titled “FRANKENSTEIN FOOD – SEND IN THE CLONES” talks about the concern of eating cloned animals and their products. The meat and the milk of cloned animals are claimed to be as normal as the naturally born animals. However, environmentalists are saying that the consequences of eating cloned animals are unpredictable and hazardous without any scientific prove. Also, animals’ welfare organization blamed the cruelty of creating cloned animals through scientific method because it sometimes creates deformed organisms. Moreover, consumer should have their rights to choose what they eat. If they are really concern about eating cloned animals, they should have a choice. Therefore, it is necessary for the manufacturers to label the food that comes from cloned species.

There are counter arguments which promotes cloning and new technologies. As the world is facing population explosion, the shortage of food becomes a critical problem. It can be solved by modern technologies, for example, the massive use of fertilizers and pesticides or development of the genetic food to increase farm production. From the article by Alan Caruba which titled “The Advocates of Technophobia” claimed that early technologies development could create a lot of concerns. He used electricity as an example. In his article, he mentioned that the invention of electricity was beneficial to human. However, it was not used massively when it was very first developed because people were afraid of it. It is mainly due to the work of Frankenstein. So, we are now in the same situation. The environmentalists who blame on the use of modern technologies in food production, such as genetic food, are the result of science fiction and created technophobia towards new technologies. In my point of view, science fiction does not create technophobia. Technophobia is a product from human uncertainty towards the future. To further explain, it means that if we know the consequences of such technologies, there will be no obstacle when applying them to our daily lives.

To conclude, Frankenstein was an idea developed in the 19th century. It was the first idea which showed human phobia towards technologies. Although, people were afraid of creating a Frankenstein in the reality, it did not really haunting the development of technologies. In modern days, technologies are developing as fast as they could, such as cloning. We can see that Frankenstein is not haunting our technological development. And, because of Frankenstein, human beings are more aware during technological development to prevent any terrible mistakes and utilize resources to control new technologies.


References:

"Frankenstein in the University -- Campus Technology." Campus Enterprise Networking & Infrastructure -- Campus Technology. .

"Experts detail obstacles to human cloning - News Office." MIT. .

Bloomfield, Brain P., and Thoe Vurdubakis. "Re-Engineering the Human: New Reproductive Technologies and the Specter of Frankenstein." World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. .

Caruba, Alan. "The Advocates of Technophobia by Alan Caruba -- Capitalism Magazine." Capitalism Magazine - Individual Rights are the Moral Basis of Society. .

Garland, Wayne. "FRANKENSTEIN FOOD." Manataka Home Page. .

Popen, Shari. "Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein's Problem." Viterbo University..

Frankenstein - how far can our bodies go? (Q3)

This picture could be a good reflection for us – human beings created Frankenstein, is he just some technologized-product, is he a cyborg, or already became part of us ?

It’s all begun with Mary Shelley's novel about a brilliant but frenzied scientist constructing a hideous creature from human parts stolen from graveyards. The outcome was called Frankenstein, which is considered as a classic, ugly, lumbering and murderous monster which the book never named. After the novel was published, it had an influence across literature and popular culture, some considered it as one of the very first science fictions and movies. It had also sparked a lot of controversies regarding the over-reaching technologies of modern man, which still affecting nowadays’ discussions of technologies.

Promise and Peril provides some ideas for us to ponder before starting the discussions. The term “Frankenstein”, whether monster, scientist, novel, film, image, or myth is often unclear – whenever some powerful new technology poses risk to humankind or challenges our ideas of what it means to be human. It also provides some more ideas regarding whether the society should balance the benefits of new technological discoveries against ethical or spiritual questions they may pose – for example, biomedical knowledge of tobacco withheld from the public similarly post harm and risks to human beings; or the cloning that whether scientists could hold the kind of power cloning represents proceed without constraint.

Thus there is a term called The “Frankenstein Complex”, which is well explained in the article Countering the Frankenstein Complex. McCauley discusses the“Frankenstein Complex” – meaning the technophobia not against robotics or mad scientists, but of artificial humans, the fear that artificial intelligence would soon overtake humanity and would, inevitably, take control of the planet for one purpose or another. She also points out the possibility of technology misuse and irresponsibility on the part of robotics and AI researchers that, while not resulting in the obliteration of humanity, could be disastrous for the people directly involved. (In this sense, Frankenstein, also stands for the acquisition of scientific power foolishly pursued with the wisdom of the world.) The creation of Frankenstein – technologized the trajectory of living entities through galvanization, had also suggested an open-ended nature of the body’s becoming that worth us to think about.

Responding to McCauley’s article, Imagining Futures, Dramatizing Fears has similar ideas, it argues the notion of ‘knowledge carries risks’, and talked about the fear that people afraid of knowing too much, and may perhaps even fear intelligence. It also discusses the 'The Three Laws of Robotics' first appeared explicitly in a story in 1942 : First, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. Second, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. And lastly, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. These three rules are a kind of ‘safeguard’ for human beings from advanced technologies. (To further understand these rules, I recommend you to watch the movie “i-robot” starring Will Smith).

In this sense, Hollywood and the media had sensationalize and fuel our fears because it makes for an exciting story. Movies like Edward Scissorhands is also a good example of Tim Burton’s take on the Frankenstein story. Edward, who is an unfinished creation, has scissors for hands. In Gothic Genre-Edward Scissorhand and Frankenstein comparison, the author makes a comparison of Scissorhands and Frankenstein regarding Scissorhands plays with the same notions of creation and idea of the monster or ‘outsider’ as Frankenstein did. The different responses of society when faced with these monsters gives insight into societal norms and viewpoints of acceptance- the two ‘monsters’ are abandoned and, seeking company, finds its way into the community. It also lead to associations like whether Frankenstein or Scissorhand should be considered as cyborg or not.

Body Parts That Matter: Frankenstein, or The Modern Cyborg? points out one important misconceptions that Frankenstein is always being considered as cyborg. It explains the differences between the two, for instance, while the cyborg may not function in quite the same ways as Frankenstein monster, it does serve as a precursor to the cyborg. Specifically stating that what Donna J. Haraway writes -“ While the cyborg may not function in quite the same ways as Frankenstein's monster, it does serve as a precursor to the cyborg”. Specifically stating that Frankenstein's creature is not a cyborg, though Frankenstein did occupied a position that opens up the possibility of the cyborg. The article further explains the cybog is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation, it is a figure not only for borders, but one involving a certain amount of responsibility. Moreover, the cyborg is not regarded as ‘other’ like Frankenstein was, they are part of us.

Frankenstein is not considered as a cyborg, rather it holds similar controversies as cloning. In Frankenstein vs. Cloning - Man: Created or Creator, it states that cloning is just the modern Frankenstein, that cloning creates something that was not given to humanity. It talks about the possibility of human cloning was raised when Scottish scientists at Roslin Institute created a sheep called "Dolly" in 1997. Since cloning also involves the creation of beings by man, it also sparkled lots of controversies as Frankenstein did. It also tells us the relationship between cloning and Frankenstein, just like when Dr. Richard Seed announced that he was going to start a human cloning clinic, what his opponents called him was "modern-day Dr. Frankenstein." People fear of Frankenstein as well as cloning because a clone is an imperfect imitation of the real thing.

In respond to the previous sites, Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein’s Problem (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology) says we are all living in this technological-advanced age that new technologies are inevitable, and they already became part of us. This site provides meaningful outlook for readers to ponder the balance between human and technologies. The author points out that though we are living in an era that scientific, technological dominance over much of our social and economic life, it is important for us to stop focusing in new technologies. Since the author notes, we are creating beings that we are sending out into the world with little concern for how best to include them in the dynamic and changing human community- just as Mary Shelley's novel created Frankenstein but people just have too little concern about what kind of destructiveness technology could bring. Instead, we should pay more attention on how values, ideas, and interests embodied in technologies remain hidden from view becomes a bit less mysterious if we reflect that many technologies take their place comfortably as part of the ordinary everydayness of our surroundings.


REFERENCES


Daniel, C. “Imagining Futures, Dramatizing Fears”, http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/SF/sf03.html (Accessed 26 February 2009)

“Frankenstein vs. Cloning – Man: Created or Creator”, http://harmoniousglow.blogspot.com/2007/06/frankenstein-vs-cloning-man-created-or.html (Accessed 24 February 2009)

“Gothic Genre-Edward Scissorhand and Frankenstein comparison”, http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=33361 (Accessed 26 February 2009)
Harold E. Varmus. “Frankenstein – penetrating the secrets of nature”, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/frankenstein/frank_promise.html (Accessed 23 February 2009)

Lee, M. “Countering the Frankenstein Complex”, http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus/AAAISpringSymposium2007/submissions/aaai_ss_07_id06.pdf (Accessed 2 February 2009)

Robert, W. A. “Body Parts That Matter: Frankenstein, or The Modern Cyborg?”, http://www.womenwriters.net/editorials/anderson1.htm (Accessed 26 February 2009)

Shari, P. “Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein’s Problem (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology)”,
http://www.viterbo.edu/analytic/Vol%2019%20no.%201/thinking%20through%20tecnology.pdf (Accessed 24 February 2009)

Source of picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94177846@N00/312296494/