Difference between revisions of "He, She and It"
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Jacobo Canady, review of Dongshin Yi's ''A Genealogy of Cybergothic: Aesthetics and Ethics in an Age of Posthumanism'' (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing), 2010; in ''Extrapolation'' 52.3: 380-83: | Jacobo Canady, review of Dongshin Yi's ''A Genealogy of Cybergothic: Aesthetics and Ethics in an Age of Posthumanism'' (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing), 2010; in ''Extrapolation'' 52.3: 380-83: | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
| − | + | Thus Yi lays the groundwork for the thesis he develops in the fifth and final chapter. Using ''He, She and It'' [...], he explains how the concept of "human" at the root of our principles is also at the root of segregation. The "human" has always been defined in opposition to some nonhuman Other; women and sexual or ethnic minorities have traditionally been excluded from the "human," as proven by their ongoing struggles to be acknowledged as equals. The cyborg will have to face such circumstances when it appears. This is, by far, the most controversial aspect of Yi's work, since he equates non-existing beings, the cyborgs, to groups that have actually suffered the consequences of real segregation. Yi does not use the cyborg as a metaphor to illustrate the struggle of the oppressed by society, and he is not using that term in a lax way, such as referring to people with prosthetic limbs. On the contrary, the cyborg is [in Yi's reading? — RDE] the next stage in the evolution of humanity and posthumanity; as such, a real danger of potential conflicts lies ahead of us. and, in Yi's eyes, we should engage in a series of changes to prevent them. (Canady, p. 382) | |
</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
| − | RDE, 28Mar19, 27Ap19, 7May19, | + | RDE, 28Mar19, 27Ap19, 7May19, 18Mar23 |
[[Category: Fiction]] | [[Category: Fiction]] | ||
| + | [[Category: Literary Criticism]] | ||
Revision as of 18:52, 18 March 2023
Piercy, Marge. He, She and It (vt Body of Glass). New York: Fawcett Books-Random House, 1991.[1]
Major novel significant here for its variation on Cyberpunk, including a network achieving cyberspace, and a cyborg, Yod, described correctly in the Wikipedia article as "a robot with human appearance and programmed human characteristics": a literary descendant of the Golem, whose story is intertwined with that of Yod.[2][3]
Widely discussed and analyzed, including in Anca Vlasopolos's "Technology as Eros's Dart: Cyborgs as Perfect (Male?) Lovers." Reviewed insightfully by Sherry Coldsmith, Foundation, #58 (Summer 1993): 108-15. See also Karen Cadora's "Feminist Cyberpunk," especially p. 365, who explicitly sees Yod as "an android with highly sophisticated artificial artificial intelligence [AI], [who] crosses the boundary into humanity" (p. 365).
Discussed and contextualized among SF sex stories (etc.) in the essay by Victor Grech et al., "Sex in the Machine."
Jacobo Canady, review of Dongshin Yi's A Genealogy of Cybergothic: Aesthetics and Ethics in an Age of Posthumanism (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing), 2010; in Extrapolation 52.3: 380-83:
Thus Yi lays the groundwork for the thesis he develops in the fifth and final chapter. Using He, She and It [...], he explains how the concept of "human" at the root of our principles is also at the root of segregation. The "human" has always been defined in opposition to some nonhuman Other; women and sexual or ethnic minorities have traditionally been excluded from the "human," as proven by their ongoing struggles to be acknowledged as equals. The cyborg will have to face such circumstances when it appears. This is, by far, the most controversial aspect of Yi's work, since he equates non-existing beings, the cyborgs, to groups that have actually suffered the consequences of real segregation. Yi does not use the cyborg as a metaphor to illustrate the struggle of the oppressed by society, and he is not using that term in a lax way, such as referring to people with prosthetic limbs. On the contrary, the cyborg is [in Yi's reading? — RDE] the next stage in the evolution of humanity and posthumanity; as such, a real danger of potential conflicts lies ahead of us. and, in Yi's eyes, we should engage in a series of changes to prevent them. (Canady, p. 382)
RDE, 28Mar19, 27Ap19, 7May19, 18Mar23
