Medicine

Lester D. Stone, EL 65, The Cyborg Self, Brown University, 2006

Lester D. Stone, EL 65, The Cyborg Self, Brown University, 2006

What can be said about cyborgs and medicine? That answer lies back in the 1980s with Valerie Hartouni's examination of two headlines, "Brain-Dead Mother Has Her Baby,"and "Orphan Embryos Saved.".. "What makes these headlines make sense? Why might they seem sensible today when only twenty years ago they would certainly have been preposterous? ...What beliefs,assumptions,and expectations allow them to be coherently rendered, taken seriously, understood as "fact" rather than "fiction"? What is the world they simultaneously construct and contain? What are the stories they tell about reproductive possibilities, relations and relationships in late twentieth century America, and what is the terrain they occupy and contest in that telling?"[pg139] The Cyborg Handbook answers this question stating "I will argue that modern approaches to reproductive bodies and processes were and remain centered on achieving and/or enhancing control over those bodies and processes"(pg139). The Cyborg Handbook also raises a postmodern view by refiring to the redesign and transformation of reproductive bodies and processes to achieve a variety of goals. To understand reproductive processes in the modern as well as postmodern view, deconstructing the body as well as reproductive processes is needed. The major reproduction processes today are menstruation, contraception, menopause, and male reproductive processes. The body brakes down into three parts. The first body shows the phenomenally experienced,lived individual, The social body represents a symbol for thinking about relationships among nature, society and culture. The third centers around bodies politic and of social and political control. But as one explores deeper into cyborgs in medicine, one encounters fetal technologies transforming humans into cyborgs. To understand medicine and the cyborg one needs to also understand the life cycle of cyborg. Japan is a leader of artificial liver research. Japan has its own separate path in medicine than many Western countries as expected. Their medical practices are unknown to many Western places but influencel once known nonetheless.

History of the Cyborg: Index


Course Website cyborg Body & Self

Last modified 30 December 2006