Just a Woman in a Monkey Suit

I think that Hayles and Haraway would agree that we are all cyborgs, though while Hayles wants us to see the pleasure in being post-human (instead of the terror we might feel about our anti-human replacements), Haraway acknowledges the pleasure and responsibility we have from the very beginning of her text. Hayles is more concerned about how our construction as cyborgs has been historically created and how that has unfairly privileged information over materiality, while Haraway is speaking about how the the fact that the cyborg does not share the same history with us (more comments on that below) can be empowering.

Haraway also slightly extends the conversation about the lack of differentiation between humans and animals (or perhaps I just comprehended it better). I also understand more of where Haraway herself stands on this issue, as well as others. As we discussed in class, Hayles brings up points in a different sort of pattern, where she cites a lot of people and does not really bring in what she thinks until the end. Haraway, on the other hand, states:

Language, tool use, social behavior, mental events, nothing really convincingly settles the separation of human and animal. And many people no longer feel the need for such a separation; indeed, many branches of feminist culture affirm the pleasure of connection of human and other living creatures. (293)

Though I admit Haraway does not overtly claim to align herself with these "many branches of feminist culture," it is easy to fill in the blanks. After reading these texts, How We Became Posthuman seems like the kind of person at the party who wants to tell you all about everyone in the room (though of course you've already met them all and so some boring background explanations can be skipped) and everything she knows about the stories of the previous owners, because that matters to the history of the house, and, after all, we are in a house, right?! The information on your flash drive for that huge presentation tomorrow is only as important as the device it is stored in, especially if your house were to burn to the ground. You really want to understand her, but you keep getting mixed up between Terri and Kerri even after she's told you five times, and then you proceed to spend the whole night wandering around the kitchen trying to keep her from finding your matches. "The Cyborg Manifesto," on the other hand, tells you the end of the story as you are walking in the door, enough that you catch the names of some of the movements she cites (because you weren't sick that one week in theory class, were you?) before she's telling you why it matters to everyone in this room right now, and you think you want to agree with her but she seems to be agreeing and disagreeing with How We Became Posthuman in equal measure, who gave you such detailed explanations that sounded so right, and you realize maybe you should have gone to that other party that Kerri went to where they were just playing games...or was that Terri? Maybe that's just me.

While Hayles is more concerned with giving information back its body, Harroway has much more of an overt political bent. She argues that, because cyborgs have no history, they are not subject to the same constructed categories that dominate discourse; they "would not recognize the Garden of Eden. [They are] not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust" (293). She states that race and gender are historically produced, and that we need to stop trying to come together for a revolution at the expense of marginalizing others. Shortly after this, Hayles and Harroway come together when Harroway says, "In relation to objects like biotic components, one must think not in terms of essential properties, but in terms of design, boundary constraints, rates of flows, systems logics, costs of lowering constraints" (301). When I first read this, I thought about the section in How We Became Posthuman that dealt with homeostasis and the troubling uncoupling of information from context. Then I thought that Haraway was more on board with information as code then Hayles, but a second reading made me change my mind. Along with that, both authors also agree that scientists see information as "just that kind of quantifiable element (unit, base of unity) which allows universal translation" (303) and that "we are not dealing with technological determinism, but with a historical system depending upon structured relations among people" (304). However, the hints of feminism I saw in Hayles are much more on the agenda for Haraway.

One of the parts I found really compelling in Hayles' text was the story about Janet Freed. Hayles states that Freed, unlike the male scientists at the conference, would never forget the intersection between information and materiality, because she was the one doing the labor in that situation by transcribing the Macy Conferences. I couldn't help but think about this when I was reading Haraway (and her deskilling brought me back to Johnson), though Hayles was not as concerned about economics. In the work of Catherine Bateson, another woman Hayles dicusses in the same chapter, Bateson acknowledges her sadness about the death of her child, and how that influenced her view on the scientists' discussions of what constituted life. According to Haraway, "that women regularly sustain daily life partly as a function of their enforced status as mothers is hardly new; the kind of integration with the overall capitalist and progressively war-based economy is new" (305). Hayles uses Bateson (and Freed) as examples to show that the observer is always part of the system; Haraway expands on that to overtly address that more women are entering the workforce and how we need a new sense of unity and experience beyond totality (310).

www.allmusic.com

Overall, both authors are all about the power of narrative and writing. Hayles carves out a special place for literary texts in representing and dissecting what scientific works cannot, and she describes in a really cool way the narrative of science. Haraway describes the empowerment that comes with being able to signify, especially for colonized groups. One of my favorite quotes from the piece is "Releasing the play of writing is deadly serious...Feminist cyborg stories have the task of recording communication and intelligence to subvert command and control" (311). She talks a bit about how students had trouble reading some of these texts after works in the cannon, but I was hoping to hear more about why we teach what we teach and how that fits in to the system of testing and reconsidering pedagogy, but I guess that's another text entirely...

PS. I'm a Robot

I found Hayles' text to be engaging, confusing, inspiring, frustrating, and difficult: the flickering signifier of my own flickering ability to understand embodiment, liberal humanism, and Phillip Dick. In How We Became Posthuman, Hayles takes us through a truncated history of cybernetics, including both scientific and literary texts, to contest that there can be a separation between information and material; she aims to fight against virtuality (see quote below). For her, it is important to specifically describe the history of how and why that disconnect occurred, including the three waves of development in the field: "The first, from 1945 to 1960, took homeostasis as a central concept; the second, going roughly from 1960 to 1980, revolved around reflexivity; and the third, stretching from 1980 to the present, highlights virtuality" (7). The Macy conferences, part of the earliest period, were marked by wanting to see machine function as man (functionally similar but without removing liberal humanism) and maintain scientific objectivity by placing the observer outside the system. Reflexivity (see definition below) was discussed and then discarded uncomfortably by all but a few thinkers. Conversely, the second wave focused on the observer and the concept of autopoiesis, or "self-making" that required "that systems are informationally closed" (10), thus making information and the system indistinguishable and bringing the observer into the system. The last wave looked at the capacity to evolve and redefined living and the connection between the material and information, thus putting us in the mindset to think about what being post-human means/could mean. I thought the chart was fairly useful for understanding some of the distinctions between these movements (page 16), though I still get stuck in all the theory/definitions beneath it.

Early on we are introduced to reflexivity, a concept threaded throughout the text. Hayles states, "Reflexivity is the movement whereby that which has been used to generate a system is made, through a changed perspective, to become part of the system it generates" (8). Hayles uses the example of hands drawing a picture being sketched as part of the picture. Reflexivity is important because it separates us from the notion of objectivity. The part about Catherine Bateson stood out as an important example that made it clear to me that the observer is part of the system. I like that Hayles describes both how this functions in Bateson's text and Bateson's awareness of her subjectivity. It reminds me of the discussion we had this week in English 360 about extrinsic proofs and the troubling emphasis on simply presenting "pure data." This was complicated by two separate lists of the best movies of 2010, signaling the importance of context and interpretation.

I also really enjoyed Hayles views of literature and science and the importance of the interrelation between them. For example she says, "As the chapters on the scientific developments will show, culture circulates through science no less than science circulates through culture, The heart that keeps this circulatory system flowing is narrative..." (21). These quotes/connections are what made me really excited to read this book in the first place. I wonder how much scientists would agree with this emphasis on narrative though. It also makes me think more about the inclusion of the observer in the system (seems to be a theme I'm stuck on), and I wonder if scientists are moving toward this acknowledgement in their texts or not. It also makes me think about the audience for this book. I found a reviewer that talked about how, because of this connection, some part of the text will always be alienating, and I'm curious to see if our class thought that was true or not. I do think that she may have benefited from scientific discourse a bit in its adherence to plain language, because sometimes I feel like her language is purposefully crafted to make me struggle. In that regard, do some texts have "natural bodies?" (45). What would that be? Does hers? Also, why have I never heard of autopoietic theory? It seems like this whole contention over the emphasis on DNA never actually made it to the biologists, or we chose to ignore it.

Another definition that is important is what Hayles is arguing against is virtuality. She states:

"Technical artifacts help to make an information theoretic view a part of everyday life....information is increasingly perceived as interpenetrating material forms. Especially for users who may not know the material processes involved, the impression is created that pattern is predominant over presence. From here it is a small step to perceiving information as more mobile, more important, more essential than material forms. When this impression becomes part of your cultural mindset, you have entered the condition of virtuality" (19).

It is easy to see how the privileging of information came about, and I appreciated Hayles discussion of pattern and randomness instead of presence/absence. What I understand is that in a general sense the formation of patterns overall from the random is part of what makes us post-human, but I'm not sure I've got that quite right. I feel like I need to understand more about related theories before I feel entirely comfortable with this text, and it has me thinking about the information she does provide (lots about the narratives of the stories she chooses, so much so that I feel it almost overwhelms her argument at times) and what she doesn't (assumed familiarity with those famous dudes).

I also found the parallels between Hayles assertion that "the computer molds the human even as the human builds the computer" (47) and her claim that "the body produces culture at the same time that culture produces the body" (200) interesting, especially because she is all about considering context and everything involved in the system. However, does this draw us back to the we shape the tools and then the tools shape us argument? Is anyone disagreeing with this?

A-Maze of Technology

My blog post should probably start with an apology, because I did not do a very good job of describing what I want my final paper to be about. I'm still not sure exactly where I'm going or what to include, but I'm largely interested in the relationship between science and narrative and how technology has influenced young adult literature. I also want to examine stereotypes of scientists and intellectualism, which includes an examination of gender roles, especially given the rise of the female-villain-scientist character in recent young adult dystopian texts. My current aim is to examine some of these issues in the text Maze Runner, a book about the struggle of Thomas and his friends to survive a scientific experiment.

Spoiler Alerts: The narrative begins when Thomas enters the Glade, a community of teenage boys that has been built in the middle of a giant maze. He enters with supplies through an elevator they call the Box, and has no memory of who he is except for his name; the boys explain that this happens every month. Thomas is slowly introduced to the boys' way of life, including their distinctive lingo, and learns that they have been trying to escape the maze for more than two years without success. Their system is to rely on a group of boys called the maze runners, who run the maze every day and subsequently record what the maze looks like. Though they have thousands of maps, the maze changes every day, and they are unable to find any patterns that will allow them to leave. Furthermore, the maze runners must return before nightfall when the doors to the maze close and grievers, half-biological, half-mechanical creatures freely roam the maze. No one has ever survived the night in the maze. As the story continues, a girl is delivered through the box who can telepathically communicate with Thomas, and, through a series of dangerous misadventures, the group eventually escape the maze to meet its creators, a group called WICKED.

I aim to analyze this book using Hayles, Nakamura, and Johnson (User-Centered Technology), as well as other relevant texts. My goal is to argue that the whole book represents our interactions and fears as users of technology. I would like to examine the expert/novice binary and the idea of technology as a black box, technological determinism, humans as product or animal (they eventually have bar codes), the scientist and the user as post-human, the default identity online (white male), and the relationship between information and materiality, including the failure of scientific method to yield productive results. Hayles text is especially interesting in this regard, given that the boys discover that they don't even know their real names, and have instead been named after famous male scientists (Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, etc.). However, the female character is not named after a scientist, and Minho, the only character described as Asian, is named for a scientist of the future, according to the author's commentary after the fact.  

I would also like to explain that technology has changed our view of the maze narrative and what is savage and dangerous, using both Greek mythology and Lord of the Flies, one of the cited inspirations for this text. Comparing the beast and the Minotaur to the grievers could be a productive direction in this regard, as well as the role of feminine knowledge and how escape happens (the string, the fire, the digital window). I would also like to delve into how digital spaces influence memory, privacy, and language/slang, as well as the role of the woman as "the end of technology" (Teresa's appearance signals changes in the maze and their eventual escape).

Mark made the great suggestion that I should speak with Dr. Boyd, so I am doing that next week. It was also suggested that I take a look at Technologies of the Gendered Body. My main concern is that I may stretch evidence too much to fit my own interpretations or that I don't have a clear idea of which ideas are going to be the most fruitful in terms of working with sources. I chose this text because I'm also hoping to be able to watch the recent movie version, though I'm not sure how much to include that aspect (my original goal was to be able to compare the written description of a griever to the visual one). I also thought about looking at art and fan fiction inspired by the text, but I'm not sure how far to go or how useful that might be. The second book also reveals that there was a whole other maze with all girls in it and one boy, and I am not sure how much that should influence my reading of the original text.

Leave a Comment after the Beep...

I want to briefly draw connections between two of the articles we read and Castells' work, because I think they both add to the conversation in ways I was hoping for when I wrote my last post. Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times is in a multi-modal form that I appreciate given the subject matter and the attention paid to preserving the co-author's voices. As I pointed out in one of my comments, I think that Networks of Outrage and Hope could have benefited from being a digital text to embrace the advantages of that mode (e.g. embedded video, links, etc.). Perhaps this is also based on personal bias, because to be honest I hate flipping back and forth between between chapters and notes, but I also think it would have helped readers compare these moments and the way these different technologies have played a role. In her blog, Zarah mentioned wanting to more about what sparked these movements, and I think that would have helped Castells include more of that interesting, important material without making the text substantially longer.

Lisa's comment about linearity vs. a network or web also reminded me of Dr. Ericsson's digital text we read in 501 and how works online can disrupt (or not disrupt) that sense of organization and how we move through them. For example, Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times does not keep all of the introduction on the same page, but organizes based on subheadings that the reader must click through. Does this say something about attention span or how we expect information online to be displayed? Readers are able to see the "title page" at all times as well, where one can click to find more information about the co-authors (though I'm interested in why the "more information" is simply another picture and when/where they were born, especially given the transnational emphasis of the text). It also includes chapters, but that has me wondering if it is important to read chapter 3 before I read chapter 5 and if we need those markers at all. What would happen if we arranged the categories horizontally instead of vertically, or even in a web (thinking Prezi)? In Castells' work, is it important that I read the chapter about the social movement in Spain before I read about Occupy Wall Street? Would an alternative organizational scheme this give the reader more agency (Is this like the digital portfolio conversation?)? I realize we should also consider the disadvantages of the digital too; after all, Castells' does that have to include a 'be patient' part of his text or make the reader wait for QuickTime to download. He also doesn't have to worry about how his text will look on a mobile phone or if readers can get the message even if they can only access part of the text. As the "Generation Y" article demonstrates, it is important to think about the constraints and advantages of these different media and if they really change the way we communicate.

my-prezious-precious-prezi-joke

Overall, I like the emphasis in Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times on maintaining the integrity of the coauthors voices, at it reminds me of the readings that speak to valuing student work and viewing them as equal members of the conversation. In the introduction Berry, Hawisher, and Selfe, describe the reasoning behind their method:

 Because participants' voices have been such an important part of these literacy narratives, we have also tried to maintain, as far as possible, the integrity of the responses: at times using digital video to record their narratives and writing processes and at other times using their own written words and language. In addition, we have selected written passages that retain the participants' words and phrasing, grammatical structures, and distinctive word choices, which also mark their digital videos. This approach, we believe, keeps the contributors’ language intact—along with all of its important markers of class, age, geography, and personal expression.

However, it also strikes me as interesting that they need to keep coming back to this methodology--it is almost as if they feel like they have to justify it, which to me is a bit strange. Are we still at the point where we need to talk about why we want to hear people actually talk/write about what they have talked about instead of a translation? Also, the co-authors don't make the cover or the works cited entry, and we don't hear from them until after chapter 1...and I keep looking at the picture of the researchers and their self-representations and trying to understand their meaning. There is a third picture that you only get if you click on the image, which is in color and also blocks out part of the shot. I can see how this relates to being the organizers and being behind the scenes, but how does looking at the building (a school?) define being an insider or an outsider? Why is this picture in the section on making a global turn? What are the different ways pictures are used in the part of the text we read, and what makes them rhetorically effective? How do these pictures give us different ideas about the identities of these students?

http://ccdigitalpress.org/transnational/intro2.html

I also wanted to talk about "Political communication in the Cuban blogosphere: A case study of Generation Y", because it describes a particular technology and its affordances and constraints, something that Castells does not really discuss. The authors build on Castells 2008 text and his concept of mass self-communication in their article (159) and also include a section about how these spaces have made these authors (or, in the case of the article, author) famous and perhaps that they are using them for personal gain. Castells does it in his discussion of livestreamers (176) and this article does it when it talks about responses by people in favor of the Cuban process (156). Do these bloggers fall under more intense scrutiny than other "established" news sources/media? How do these spaces redefine what we consider "credible"? I also thought the discussion of Twitter was fascinating, and I'm wondering if people agree with the authors' claim that:

Twitter's interactive capabilities fall short of opening opportunities for real and substantial dialogue between Sanchez and her followers, which could lead to enrichment of the topics addressed in her blog, mostly because of Twitter's restrictions on post lengths (140 characters) (165).

Does the length constraint stop substantial dialogue, or does it promote a back-and-forth exchange? Should Twitter lift this restriction? What are online alternatives that allow us to have "real and substantial" dialogue? Would the conversation be different if comments influenced what was written in the blog? Does this piece support the claim that the internet is making us more polarized, because we read (and comment on) what we already believe in? Does consensus building better take place in the space offline? Castells highlights the importance of the connection between digital and non-digital networks, and I wonder if that is part of what this blog is missing (or what, at the very least, we don't hear about).

funplusfun90.blogspot.com

When Hope Seems Outrageous

Manuel Castells' Networks of Outrage and Hope discusses social movements that aim for true democracy and justice using a combination of online and offline networks and spaces. Castells describes these movements from Iceland to the Middle East to Spain to the streets of New York and recognizes the similarities between them stating, "In all cases the movements ignored political parties, distrusted the media, did not recognize any  leadership and rejected all formal organization, relying on the Internet and local assemblies for collective debate and decision-making" (4). The book makes observations about these movements (e.g. the spark, who participated, the response and outcomes, etc.); however, Castells contends that it is too early to make any systematic statements, only hypotheses. He uses his theory of grounded power to state that institutional structure is defined by the interplay between power and counterpower and that power is gained through peoples' minds or through force, which cannot last forever: "torturing bodies is less effective than shaping minds" (5). The way to create meaning in the minds of the people, a more stable form of power, is to communicate, and we can now do this partly through digital "mass self-communication" (7). Thus, these movements have created a space between the digital and the urban to conquer fear through community, invoke symbolism, and regain representation (11). According to Castells, these movements are emotional, requiring both outrage and then hope to turn feeling into action (14).

I thought the text was powerful in the way that it described the movements and their similarities, and I learned quite a bit of detail about these different revolutions. However, I am a bit curious about the addressed audience for this text. I know that Castells' works are widely cited, but I sometimes felt as if I knew too much or too little about what he was discussing. For example, I thought the part about the government's attempt to shut down the Internet was particularly fascinating, especially the new technologies that were created to allow people to have their voices heard. However, his example about speak-to-text made me want to know more about Twitter and why that has often been the outlet for these messages; if the other readings sounded outdated due to their examples, this one made me feel old. He also made the very good point that the internet is impossible to shut down because it is "the lifeline of the interconnected global economy" (65), but I was not quite sure I completely understood the implications of that lack of physicality. Castells says that the speed in which the Internet was reconnected in Egypt indicates that "neither the disconnection nor the reconnection was physical. There was simply a matter of re-writing the code for the routers, once the government authorized the ISPs to operate again" (65). I guess I was expecting him to say something about how that plays into power dynamics or this space between the digital and the physical, but he then quickly moves on to talking about why they restored it instead. Furthermore, he also brings up the role of women in the chapter on Egypt and how these revolutions occur in places where people have internet access, but I was hoping for more. What about the role of women in these other countries? How long have these places have widespread access, and did that affect the movements? Polity Press, the publisher of his text, says that they serve a mainly academic audience, but also strive to publish works that a general audience could pick up. Could you see yourself teaching with this text? If so, in what type of a class? What type of student? Would you feel the need to supplement, or could the book stand on its own? In that same vein, could a chapter be pulled out to discuss? If you were to use a chapter, which one would you pick? Who do you think is reading this book as a "member of the general public"?

This book also hints at some of the problematic issues these movements have had to face, but overall gives a very positive view of the digital and these networks. I would be really curious to see the 2010 study that talked about how the Internet has increased peoples' sense of security, agency, and liberty done again (233), especially considering the article on Isis that Lacy and Alex provided. In other words, I'm not totally convinced, or I at least want to see some numbers (I know, there's a link, but I wish it got a chart like some of the other information). At the very least the study backed up the assertion that the groups who could most benefit from the Internet are the ones that have the least access (boo). However, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I did at least partially enjoy reading a book with a "yay Internet" message, though I feel that all the readings have stressed the importance of connection between digital and non-digital spaces. For example, in our "overview text", Reed had a brief portion of a chapter dedicated to social movements, and his final claim was, "it is this close connection to 'real-world' away-from-keyboard sites that makes online netroots activism most effective" (134). Castells expands on Reed's synopsis by discussing how these social movements have created a new sense of time as well when he claims:

...they have generated their own form of time: timeless time, a trans-historical form of time, by combining two types of experience. On the one hand, in the occupied settlements, they live day by day, not knowing when the eviction will come...on the other hand...they live in the moment in terms of their experience, and they project their time in the future of history-making in terms of their anticipation...It is an emerging, alternative time, made of a hybrid between the now and the long now [reminds me a bit of Condon's talk in the long now] (223).

blogs.psychcentral.com

Do we have the patience for the 'long now'? How do we feel about this concept of 'relearning from old mistakes in terms of consensus (130)?

Lastly, there is also a very interesting tension in this work between what the movements were able to do and what they could not accomplish, which connects to the difference between short-terms goals and long-term change. Castells mentions several times that the distrust of politics stops these movements from being able to make pragmatic changes, because that would involve working through that system. In the "Occupy Wall Street" chapter, Castells summarizes this outlook when he describes two trends of the movements:

...(a) most people simply do not trust the political process as it is currently framed, so they only count on themselves; (b) the movement is wide and strong because it unites outrage and dreams while skipping politics as usual. This is its strength and its weakness. But this is what this movement is, not a surrogate for an old left always looking to find fresh support for its unreconstructed view of the world. No demands, and every demand; not a piece of society, but the whole of a different society (188).

In the end, he says that the movement's hopes will have to be "watered down" (234) through "reform or revolution" (234). In the United States, is one more likely than the other? Has this movement done enough to empower people and influence their minds? How do we go from awareness of a class divide and the degradation of the "American Dream" (everyone and their mother's AP English final paper topic) to that next step?  Does it really matter that about 30% of people supported disruptive action, especially if most didn't approve of the movement?

On a related note, I think this book is going to need another addition given the events in Hong Kong and his discussion of the government and their control of the internet in China!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29423147

For example, see:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29423147
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29407067

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/02/353189674/hong-kong-police-warn-protesters-not-to-occupy-government-buildings