It seems almost rude to be finally sitting down and writing a post for this blog exactly a week before my dissertation is actually due. But alas, those 12,000 words (among other things!) have swallowed up my time well and truly for the past couple of months.
When I first delved into the world of Posthumanism, I didn't quite know what to expect. I like the idea of humanity blurring with animal life and technology; it feels only apt for me, a girl with a battery inside her that used to write stories about a world filled with chatty rabbits, guinea pigs and mice. Haraway's writing honestly captured me from when my eyes first fell on Simians, Cyborgs and Women - although 26 years have past since the publication of her famous 'A Cyborg Manifesto', the words seems to ring true today and are reflected in what we celebrate, digest and write about in 2017.
The Power by Naomi Alderman is no exception. Announced as the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction winner for 2017, Alderman's text explores an alternative reality where women gain the power of electricity within their bodies. What ultimately becomes a clever reversal of patriarchal oppression to women, Alderman's text weaves the lives of various women whose bodies, inflicted with trauma, become beacons of power. It left me wondering, from where does this power come? Innately in their bodies, or is it a reaction, a result of their grievances and a way to fight back.
With Orphan Black recently drawing to a close (post to come), and these powerful bodies manifesting in our Marvel heroes (such as Jessica Jones), one can't help but think why mundane bodies - those that seem ordinary in every way - are becoming symbols of physical power. Empowerment seems to manifest itself physically, through strength or through special abilities, and it is that that allows the individual to rise above their constraints.
This, for me, is Posthumanism. It is beating against limitations, and 'lethal boundaries' (Braidotti 2013) that bind us. Just as my battery has allowed me to be pain free and do what I wish, so does Sarah's ability to recognise her sisterhood allow her to work together.
What empowers us does not have to be physical, but by thinking and being outside, we can perhaps become something different, something changed altogether.
When I first delved into the world of Posthumanism, I didn't quite know what to expect. I like the idea of humanity blurring with animal life and technology; it feels only apt for me, a girl with a battery inside her that used to write stories about a world filled with chatty rabbits, guinea pigs and mice. Haraway's writing honestly captured me from when my eyes first fell on Simians, Cyborgs and Women - although 26 years have past since the publication of her famous 'A Cyborg Manifesto', the words seems to ring true today and are reflected in what we celebrate, digest and write about in 2017.
The Power by Naomi Alderman is no exception. Announced as the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction winner for 2017, Alderman's text explores an alternative reality where women gain the power of electricity within their bodies. What ultimately becomes a clever reversal of patriarchal oppression to women, Alderman's text weaves the lives of various women whose bodies, inflicted with trauma, become beacons of power. It left me wondering, from where does this power come? Innately in their bodies, or is it a reaction, a result of their grievances and a way to fight back.
With Orphan Black recently drawing to a close (post to come), and these powerful bodies manifesting in our Marvel heroes (such as Jessica Jones), one can't help but think why mundane bodies - those that seem ordinary in every way - are becoming symbols of physical power. Empowerment seems to manifest itself physically, through strength or through special abilities, and it is that that allows the individual to rise above their constraints.
This, for me, is Posthumanism. It is beating against limitations, and 'lethal boundaries' (Braidotti 2013) that bind us. Just as my battery has allowed me to be pain free and do what I wish, so does Sarah's ability to recognise her sisterhood allow her to work together.
What empowers us does not have to be physical, but by thinking and being outside, we can perhaps become something different, something changed altogether.
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