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The self that feminists must code in literature and pop culture: : a postmodern critique of transmedial storytelling and the necessary recoding of cyborg texts
Edney, Jess
American pop culture and contemporary literature have influenced us such that, when we think of cyborgs, we seldom envision the cyborg of Donna Haraway's creation. As opposed to seeing the cyborg as ..."a kind of dissembled and reassembled post-modern collective and personal self" (Haraway, 2004, 23), we more frequently witness futuristic portrayals of dangerously unimpeded (and violently self-aware) technology or, worse still, the submissive and oversexualized woman purposefully designed without autonomy so that she may better "serve" men. These (mis)representations of Haraway's empowering gender-free cyborg incessantly revive an outmoded fear of technology, but moreover they reflect a culture which aims to silence and oppress those who would benefit most from opportunities to use technology / the cyborg as a means of securing liberation and creating new fiction (especially and ironically in the digital age). Nevertheless, the availability of so many digital platforms through which to replace the mainstream bastardization of Haraway's cyborg (with new, richer narratives that are diverse and inclusive) holds great promise for redefining literature. In fact, transmedial storytelling and social media offer the chance to reclaim technology in ways that not only do right by Haraway's cyborg, but are often more intersectional and accessible than traditional fictional or academic texts/spaces. And with this in mind, the chapter is a perhaps ambitious yet indeterminate exploration of the hybridity between Haraway's manifesto, transmedial storytelling, activism in the digital age, and (by extension) literature's unfortunate gatekeeping history. As well, it as a humble call-to-action to challenge mainstream culture by using a mix of literal and metaphorical feminist coding to "reprogram" the world as we know it, starting with postmodern literature. And to the latter point, the examples that are discussed and analysed herein are, appropriately, non-traditional cyborg "texts" - such as Ex-Machina, the musical fictions of Janelle Monáe (and her cyborg alter-ego Cindi Mayweather), traditional yet underappreciated young adult novels like Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Summer Prince, and Mad Max: Fury Road - which revel in the fact that we are (by Haraway's definition) cyborgs participating in a constantly evolving technological world. On the one hand, these texts are making central the issues of gender, race, sexuality, class, and disability. On the other hand, they also contribute to the argument for "recoding" literature so that we may better understand the larger, allencompassing body of work (or, as explained in the chapter, "Text") that is comprised of said smaller literary texts, social justice "texts," and miscellaneous relevant narratives, context, and outside information.
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