Wow, what a great read! I suppose my sarcasm is apparent. However, I have an overwhelming sense that this reading would be far easier if the entire work were digested. From what I can figure out it looks like the cyborg manifesto was part of the book: Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. If this is actually the case I think that a lot of our difficulty in digesting the work is the 150 or so pages that came before what we read. It is clear that Donna Haraway writes in a very unique way that has the potential to be either acutely clear in its essence or astoundingly muddled depending on your approach to it. I often find that when reading authors who take this approach a lot of the digestive process is hearing the key words they use over and over and over. This subtley builds up an almost un/sub-conscious sense or feel of what the author is trying to convey. In many ways I think Haraway is getting at a subject that cannot be nailed down and organized into pretty little boxes. Because of this there is an abstract supra-lingual quality to the ideas she is attempting to express. I don't think our inability to fully grasp her thesis or point is the fault of the author. Rather, the difficulty lies in the subject matter itself and our very limited exposure to it and motivation to understand it.
So I fully recognize that I have completely side skirted the issue of analyzing the content or attempted to make meaning out it, but I feel like the above discussion is the best thing I can contribute to the conversation at this time. Perhaps we'll have the opportunity to discuss the text more in class. Perhaps as Wendy suggested we'll encounter the same work in grad school if we find ourselves there. Maybe then we will have the foundation to effectively experience what Haraway was trying to get at...
3 comments:
I actually had this discussion with Dene a few days ago about the difficulty level of the piece and how normally it would require being in graduate school to come across something this abstract. She mentioned that the midsection is where many people tend to get lost, which is why the beginning and ending are so blurred. Which was exactly the case for me. At first I was taking it out on the author, basically cursing Donna Haraway for exposing me to such nonsense, however I'm glad you took the blame away from her and made put it out there that this piece is brilliant but confusing for those who aren't used to reading pieces that are considered grad school ready (me).
It was so much easier blaming the author though. :)
Hell Yeah we should blame the author due to she is talking about shit that was happing before pretty much all of us were a twinkle in our parents eyes....She has a zoologist degree and I secretly think she is can short of a six pack my arn't we all in someway, shape or form. She is talking about feminism and cyborgs and socialist, marxism...mixing these all together creates one big hangover the next day.
Yes, I did some research into this article as well and learned that it was taken from a larger piece. But I was very grateful that we didn't have to read the 150 or so pages that came before it too. This was tough enough. But yeah, it may have been helpful to have it in it's entire context. Or maybe not. I really like what you put together by saying "In many ways I think Haraway is getting at a subject that cannot be nailed down and organized into pretty little boxes." That's good! But you may be right in that our approach to the article may be hindering us, but I don't see how a couple more years in school is going to make this piece interesting or completely understandable. Hopefully I will have a larger vocabulary and be more knowledgable by then, but not to this crazy extent. Not that I won't be able to tackle something like this, but I still won't want to. And what's the point of publishing something that people take on only if they have to but don't really enjoy it? Anyways, that's kind of how I feel about it......
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