How Like a Leaf : An Interview with Donna Haraway (Paperback)

~ Donna Haraway (Author) "Since things are bound to get more complicated, let's begin quite simply with your biography..." (more)
Key Phrases: unfamiliar unconscious, modest witness, immune system discourse, New York, Primate Visions, The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Donna J. Haraway is one of the most significant postmodern philosophers of science; essays such as "A Manifesto for Cyborgs"--as well as several books--have made her a star in academia and even a common reference point for many "cyberpunk" science fiction writers. In How Like a Leaf, a book-length interview with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve (one of her former graduate students in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz), Haraway opens up about her private life and the gradual development of her philosophy. While Goodeve does probe for details, her interview technique is completely sympathetic to her subject, lending an opportunity for Haraway to explain herself at leisure rather than under critical fire. Some readers are bound to find her too "out there" for their tastes, but for others, How Like a Leaf may serve as a prelude to further consideration of her more academic texts.

From Library Journal

How Like a Leaf is a welcome door to the complex theories and personal life of Haraway, a noted feminist historian of science. Though not a traditional biography, this will introduce readers to the experiences that played a significant role in Haraway's provocative works (Primate Visions). Interviewer Goodeve conducts her former teacher through the development of Haraway's theories and queries her subject about her influences. Admirers of this influential feminist scholar will acquire the most out of these engaging conversations, but the book will encourage others to explore Haraway's works more thoroughly. Recommended for all women's studies and academic science collections.AFaye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Libs., Eugene
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415924030
• ISBN-13: 978-0415924030
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #927,743 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review: How Like a Leaf, January 7, 2000

By	. (Vermont) - See all my reviews

I really like this book. It's inspiring to read an interview that weaves personal, biographical, scholarly and political testimony into such an attractive afghan; this is a book that manages to be more than interesting, though. It is also useful, and rare, in that it reaffirms the marriage of a human being to her work. Academics who wonder if they lead reprehensibly pointless lives might be helped to remember their own humanity, responsibility, courage, and life by a perusal of this volume. Goodeve's intelligent conversation illuminates what Haraway's chosen art form, the essay, often unintentionally obscures. This book is nutritional; I know more than a few people who should read it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meeting of minds, March 13, 2000

By A Customer

Interviewing is a special skill, but effectively interviewing those cultural figures who are working out new ways of thinking is a rare one. With her many interviews of figures like Matthew Barney and Jeff Koons, Thyrza N. Goodeve has become known to art audiences as a remarkable interviewer and writer who is able to work with her subjects to articulate in new and accessible ways the complex ideas that motivate their work. In this book she turns her attention to her mentor, Donna Haraway, whose brilliant and innovative writing yet remains obscure and often misunderstood. The result is a remarkable portrait of a mind and a helpful guide to some of the most compelling thinking of our time.

3.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read!, November 28, 2007

By	Molly Jang - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How Like A Leaf is a profound interview with Donna Haraway, interviewed by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. Haraway who is a professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California talks about her views, ideologies, and beliefs in life as a child growing into an adult. Being raised with a strong Catholic background, she was strongly influenced by her family, nuns of the catholic church and her peers. She triple majored in zoology, philosophy and literature. Her writings were greatly influenced by her father who was a newspaper writer. While growing up, Haraway was into politics, communism and Catholicism. Her childhood and the people that have influenced her have shaped her into the influential, feminist she is today.

Haraway focuses many of her ideologies on biology and psychology. She says "Biology is about endless variation, whereas in psychology there is the notion of repetition compulsion." Even from high school she had always been interested in the regeneration of cells. Still today she is interested in the history and shaping of form, furthermore embryology and developmental biology. She focused biology as a way of how the world works biologically and also how the world works metaphorically.

Later when meeting her husband, Rusten, she taught Marxist feminism and was part of the Feminist Union. The Feminist Union was an organization targeted towards violence-against-women issues in Baltimore. From her first book to her most recent book -Crystals, Fabrics,. And Fields to Simians, Cyborgs, and Women they all come together to tell a historical narrative. Her main interest has been nature and who gets to inhabit natural categories. Biology is the central theme throughout all her books. However each book takes on a different approach of biology. Haraway discusses biology from the different aspects of cross-disciplinary connections into history, anthropology, and literature. One important general theory that Haraway goes by is "you can't adequately understand the form by breaking it down to their smallest parts and then adding relationship back.

Haraway discusses and relates her theories into metaphors in which she is often misinterpreted. Another one of Haraway interest was Primatology in which she looks through from a feminist perspective. From her interest in apes and monkeys, Haraway sought out how primatology can be part of Western representation through terms of "animal", "female", "nature." Haraway continues throughout the interview to talk about biology as the main foundation of her ideologies. Her many books contain methodologies, and relates them to the world practices through critical modernism.