Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The idea that nature is constructed, not discovered - that truth is made, not found - is the keynote of recent scholarship in the history of science. Tracing the gendered roots of science in culture, Donna Haraway's writings about scientific research on monkeys and apes is arguably the finest scholarship in this tradition. She has carefully studied the publications, the papers, the correspondence, and the history of the expeditions and institutions of primate studies, uncovering the historical construction of the pedigrees for existing social relations - the naturalization of race, sex, and class. Throughout this book she is analysing accounts, narratives, and stories of the creation of nature, living organisms, and cyborgs (cybernetic organisms: systems which embrace organic and technological components). She also looks critically at the immune system as an information system, and shows how deeply our cultural assumptions penetrate into allegedly value-neutral medical research. In several of these essays she explores and develops the contested terms of reference of existing feminist scholarship; and by mapping the fate of two potent and ambiguous words-'nature' and 'experience'-she uncovers new visions and provides the possibility of a new politics of hope.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Scholars of modern feminist theory, particularly of perspectives on science (notably biology) and how they relate to perceptions of human culture, will appreciate these 10 essays by science historian Haraway ( Primate Visions ), adapted from articles published between 1978 and 1989. They chart a shift in her standpoint during this period: the earliest works reflect a Marxist analytical influence (as befits ``a proper, US socialist-feminist'' of the '70s), while the later ones also show the influence of post-modernism. ``Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic'' surveys primatology research of the 1930s and '40s to explore how the ``principle of domination'' is embedded in some scientific thought. ``Gender for a Marxist Dictionary,'' in which Haraway develops a definition for the word ``gender,'' highlights the difficulty of reducing complex concepts to keywords. ``The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies'' views the ``biomedical, biotechnical'' self, incorporating modern discourse on the immunological system; bodies, like gender, she contends, ``are not born; they are made'' as biomedical constructs. Illustrated. (Feb.)

Booknews