Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature [Paperback]

Donna J. Haraway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 1990 | ISBN-10: 0415903874 | ISBN-13: 978-0415903875 | Edition: First Edition

Simians, Cyborgs and Women is a powerful collection of ten essays written between 1978 and 1989. Although on the surface, simians, cyborgs and women may seem an odd threesome, Haraway describes their profound link as "creatures" which have had a great destabilizing place in Western evolutionary technology and biology. Throughout this book, Haraway analyzes accounts, narratives, and stories of the creation of nature, living organisms, and cyborgs. At once a social reality and a science fiction, the cyborg--a hybrid of organism and machine--represents transgressed boundaries and intense fusions of the nature/culture split. By providing an escape from rigid dualisms, the cyborg exists in a post-gender world, and as such holds immense possibilities for modern feminists. Haraway's recent book, Primate Visions, has been called "outstanding," "original," and "brilliant," by leading scholars in the field. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women tradition--establishing

Editorial Reviews

From 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.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; First Edition edition (December 12, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415903874
• ISBN-13: 978-0415903875
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #243,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Arts & Photography > History & Criticism > Themes > Women in Art

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliancies. September 9, 2004

By Oli Fabulous

Format:Paperback

Donna Haraway's work in this collection continues to amaze me. Her intense critical engagement with the history of science is resolutely brilliant: she takes common conceptions of the body, objectivity, power, and 'nature' and pulls the rug of patriarchal metaphysics out from under them. These essays are concerned with unravelling origins myths, pointing out the pitfalls of political innocence, deconstructing our conceptions of the natural and the artefactual--you know, the usual. Her project is immense, but the she hones her points in each essay very well with dazzlingly astute political analyses and characteristic poetic phrases. If you're interested in oppositional antiracist feminist consciousness, Haraway's yr philosopher.

15 of 59 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Simians, Cyborgs, and Women The Reinvention of Nature March 27, 2003

By Christine Kovac

Format:Paperback

Christine Kovac
Sociology 248
Book Review #3
March 26, 2003

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women The Reinvention of Nature

How did nature come about? Did it happen over night or was it a process that happened gradually over time? Donna Haraway, in a complex manner, addresses this issue in her book with a feminist perspective as she analyzes historical narratives, accounts, and stories about the creation of nature. She looks at several theories of famous theorists including Darwin's evolutionary theory, social constructionism, and Freud's body politic in order to justify her argument throughout the book.
Haraway believes and argues with insightful information that everything that exists is a form of construction in which one thing leads to the development of another and so on. She specifically targets women throughout her book when supporting her argument. For example,
"Teaching in women's studies classrooms is a historically specific activity. Such
teaching inherits, constructs, and transmits particular reading and writing practices that are politically complex. These material practices are part of the apparatus for producing what will count as `experience' on personal and collective levels in women's movement. It is crucial to be accountable for the politics of experience in the institution of women's studies. ......Women do not find `experience' ready to hand any more than they/we find `nature' or the `body' performed, always innocent and waiting outside the violations of language and culture" (Haraway, 109).

This particular situation is not an obvious feature when it comes to looking at the method of women's movement. It is the experience that women obtain which enables them to move forward in women's movement.... It is constructed from one thing to the next, in which many different aspects such as experience are part of a process. It is humans that have constructed scientific evidence and then analyzed it and tested it over and over again. Haraway implicitly stresses that humans make what exists, things do not all of the sudden appear in front of us. She also talks about human bodies and how we make them, they do not pre-exist as many people believe. They are made through the process of intercourse between a man and a woman where a human organism inside a female comes to existence.
Haraway's book is ten complicated chapters full of many technical aspects about the evolution of nature through creation. While it is quite insightful, a lot of unfamiliar and technical language is used that can make the reading very frustrating. Identifying the specific argument Haraway is trying to make is not easy when digesting an incredible amount of complex information. It is a difficult book that addresses and investigates many theories critical to her argument that nature was constructed over time. If you have a lot of time on your hands, are interested in the development of nature, and are aroused by the enjoyment of intellectual challenges, I recommend this book. Read more ›

16 of 81 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Book Club 3 April 7, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Rur Soc 248
3/30/03
Book Club # 3

Simians, Cyborgs, and Women written by Donna J. Haraway is a compilation of ten essays from 1978 through 1989 that focus on the idea that nature is constructed, not discovered, and truth is made, not found. Donna J. Haraway is a science historian and Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She explains her ideas in this book through a strong feminist viewpoint.
Haraway divides her book into three sections, each section addressing different topics. The first section of the book discusses feminist struggles of developing knowledge and behavior in the social lives of monkeys and apes. The second part of the book discusses contests for the power to determine stories about nature and experience. The last part of the book discusses the cyborg embodiment and the fate of feminist concepts of gender, feminist ethics and even discusses the immune system as a biopolitical map of the chief system of difference in a postmodern world.
My opinions on this book are very one sided. I did not enjoy reading it at all. I thought that the book was very difficult to read. The book had a great deal of words in it that I have never seen before. I found myself constantly looking to a dictionary just so I could get the message behind what Haraway was trying to relay. One of the other reasons that the book was difficult to read was because it talked about many theories and ideas that I have never heard about before. This would have not been a big issue if the theories had explained more before they were used in proving Haraway's arguments. A direct example of this is when Haraway uses the theories that Zuckerman and Rowell have about reproduction.... There was one part of the book that I thought was fairly interesting and that was Haraway's idea, that people in today's modern world are cyborgs because we incorporate so much technology into our lives. I thought that that idea was a very clever way to describe our highly technical world. I went into reading this book with an open mind and I left the book with an open mind. Even though I did not enjoy reading this book and I thought it was very boring after reading it I am now more aware about how different people think and their point of view and that is always a valuable thing to take away from an experience. Read more ›

13 of 89 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Jaded and slanted November 1, 2003

By Kevin Butler

Format:Paperback

"Simians, Cyborgs, and Women" sounds as if it might be interesting to discuss the connections between the three conceps upon first glance. Feel free to read the opening portions of the book. They are representative of the majority of the book. If you are well-versed in fanatical feminist theories - and, more importantly, agree wholeheartedly with them - then you will enjoy the book immensely. On the other hand, if you are expecting a healthy discussion of the basis of, rationale for, and definitions of feminist theories, look elsewhere. The book is rife with shakey feminist theories which serve as premises to even still more outrageous conclusions, without any attempt to justify the premises themselves. As a result, it ends up a house of cards, without a strong foundation, puffed up far more than it ever should. I would have been more interested in seeing a well-structured analysis of the views underlying the arguments she makes. Alas, a search for such an analysis was in vain.