• Haraway, How Like a Leaf
• Due: Summary paper #4 (Haraway); LOOK HER UP ON THE WEB
What do you learn about Haraway from looking her up on the web? How does that knowledge help you put this book in contexts that matter? What are some of those contexts?
Compare and contrast this book to the others we have read so far. What do you notice?
Why is this an interview?
What work does this book do for our better understandings of feminist theory? Where could it take us?
14 comments:
“How Like A Leaf” is an interview with Donna Haraway by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. Haraway is a professor in the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The interview begins asking Haraway of her childhood and where she grew up. Haraway was born and grew up in Colorado where she was interested in science at a young age. She was also very interested in religion and for the earliest part of her childhood wanted to become a Nun and later a doctor. Her father was a sports writer while her mother worked in the home and died when Haraway was sixteen. Haraway attended Colorado College receiving a degree in Zoology and Philosophy and later received her PhD from Yale University. Always interested in how one lives within biology she married a man name Jaye who was gay but at the time there relationship worked for them. They traveled to Hawaii and taught and Jaye had trouble with homophobic individuals in regards to the advancement of his work. Jaye and Haraway divorced but continued to be very close. Haraway began to teach at Johns Hopkins University and meet a graduate student named Rusten who she begins a lifelong relationship with. Eventually she relocates to California for the History of Consciousness Program which she finds to be a totally different place with new politics. She has written four books which focus on relationships as a whole and the relations of parts of that whole. In her book “Primate Visions” she studies primates and the work centered around them done by primatologists who felt attacked and critiqued for being racist and sexist by her book. Her intentions were to point out that less sexist work results in better data. Jaye died of AIDS along with his lover Bob which caused Rusten and Haraway to grow closer. In 1991 she releases a collection of essays written from 1970s-1980s entitled “Simians, Cyborgs, and Women” where she related science to human social movement. Throughout her work she focused on science in metaphorical terms because it shows the “non-linearness” of the world. Through her work she points out problems in laying out life in terms of genetics and believes life to be worldly in “the commercial, the physiological, technological, the political.” Her cyborg belief is that cyborgs do not stay still but are a blending of human and technological, each with its own history. Intrigued by her own similarities with the molecular architecture of a plant and other animals she states that she is amazed how she is like a plant and such beliefs is where the title of the interview originates. The interview concludes with Haraway commenting on the teaching process and how students now are coming up with new lingo and insight from their histories which further advances life.
Donna Haraway has been an influential scientist and feminist through her social science work combining metaphor and biology. Her study of metaphor and how it shapes research in developmental biology earned her the JD Bernal Award in 2000 presented by the Society for Social Studies of Science. Her idea of the cyborg challenges the idea of the human body whereas she believes things seemingly natural such as the human body is constructed by idea and that by recognizing such myths feminist can free themselves from trying to be similar to one another but focus on the personal and other relationships. Haraways unconventional perspective on the way in which scientific human nature has evolved challenges research of the past and present.
Topics to discuss:
1) How does Haraways idea of the “cyborg” relate to ideas of gender and sexuality?
2) Do you think Haraways early beliefs in abortion rights where early signs of her interest in technology and the human body?
3)What is your take on Haraways belief that we are all “living inside biology”
Summary:
This book is in the form of an interview done by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve of Donna J. Haraway. The beginning of the interview begins out with a discussion of Haraway’s personal life, her history and such. The interview is taken place at Donna Haraway’s house in Santa Cruz, California. She explains how her theories and how her logical development came about from the experiences in her life. Thryza also guides her into a conversation of how all the aspects of her life have intertwined with each other. The works that she has done that we mentioned in the interview were “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”, Primate Visions; and Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. In her essay, A Cyborg Manifesto, she uses the cyborg as a metaphor to challenge feminists to employ in politics other than naturalism and essentialisms. Thryza asks her multiple times about her writings if she could, would she change some of her writings and almost always, Haraway says no. From this interview, it is easy to learn that Haraway is very interested in all aspects of science. She thinks science as a whole is amazing. She says
“I’m fascinated by changes of scale. I think biological worlds invite thinking at, and about, different kinds of scale. At the same time, biological worlds are full of imaginations and beings developed from quite extraordinary biological architectures and mechanism. Biology is an inexhaustible source of troping. It is certainly full of metaphor, but it is more than metaphor.”
She obviously values biology and believes that it is a source of many good things. The interview continues on with describing and explaining the different menageries she uses.
What I learned from web research about Donna J. Haraway:
-She is a postmodern feminist and argues against essentialism.
- According to Haraway's Manifesto, "There is nothing about being female that naturally binds women together into a unified category. There is not even such a state as 'being' female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices" (155).
- Haraway has also lectured in feminist theory and techno-science.
- Haraway is a leading thinker about people's love and hate relationship with machines.
Form of interview: This interview is in a non formal, free flowing form. They talk and if something comes up they elaborate on it. I think it is in a form of an interview because of its informality, she is better able to express her ideas more thoroughly. Because there are questions out there about her works, she addresses them in question answer form. A conversation with another person is easier to have than a conversation with yourself.
Discussion topics:
-Do you think you could ever have a relationship like Donna’s and Jaye’s?
- She never taught her theories in her class and says she uses teaching as a way to stay current, I don’t really understand.
From looking Harraway up on the web, I have learned a lot about her academic and literary background. She has degrees from Colorado College, Yale, and Johns Hopkins amongst other universities; during these years studying philosophy, zoology, biology, literature, et cetera. She is currently a professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. During her childhood, she was heavily influenced by Catholicism and by the reaction to Communism by Americans (i.e., McCarthyism), which is relevant in her use of metaphorical language.
Her interdisciplinary studies set the framework for most of her theories, which are deeply based in biological, technological, and social practice and fact. This interconnectedness of studies allows her to argue for heightened consciousness, as one cannot understand the true impact of a practice or object based on dividing up its facets to find a core problem. The web of factors that create a certain thing are all related and co-dependant, an argument that is often seen for examples as biological problems are related to political problems which are related to social problems, et cetera. Harraway would argue that to combat issues one must be well versed in, or at least conscious of, a myriad of topics to truly understand the situation. Harraway would also that change is based on the creation and founding of theory, rather than the criticism and negating of existing theory. In relation to what we have read in this class, I find this book to be most similar to “Gender in Real Time” by categorization of its content, style, and intent. It is also relevant to Chauncey’s “Why Marriage?”, because of its attention to the relevance and visibility of relationships within the context of time (past, present, future).
The format of this text as an interview seems to be relevant because Harraway’s knowledge of these topics and the way that she speaks deliberately about them translates more easily to the reader. It is not simply dense theory, however a more in depth view of how her theories work together in a non-threatening, more accessible way. Her language choices are clear, and her personality shines through, as the irony and humor for which she is recognized is obvious. This text is extremely relevant for its multidimensional nature, as it is so reflective of a number of aspects of the past, present and future. It pieces together her works and theories so that the reader is able to see what each represents as a separate, as a whole, and as a system of relationships. As a feminist work, it offers a glimpse of a possible future of greater consciousness, in which affinity is more important that identity, and that more of an emphasis is placed on relationships between humans and non-humans alike.
Discussion Questions:
1. What would a utopian relationship look like? How do we go about creating them? Would emotions get in the way, or can we de-socialize ourselves of jealousy, envy, lust?
2. What does a cyborg look like? How far are we from integrating cyborgs and cyborg politics into society?
3. How is Harraway in conversations with Weston?
HOW LIKE A LEAF
By: Donna J. Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is interviewed by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve on the most significant literary work of her life, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Haraway is a Professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. The interview is filled with personal details, analogies, anecdotes and metaphors of Haraway’s life and theoretical work on feminism and science.
She combines nature and biology to explain the existence of human life through philosophical and spiritual storytelling and scientific evidence. There is this multidimensional analysis of life experiences explained through biological lenses, which she refers to as biologism. Haraway explains, “You take something –an object of knowledge or culture-and you move further and further inside it, to what it’s structure is.”and then you move inside of whatever webs of meaning you discover from that analysis and so on and so forth.”(82)
She historicizes her life through the 70’s movement, her catholic spirituality along with her personal and sexual relationships. She believes there is a symbiosis between people and nature that can be understood by studying “Biopolitics of the post modern body.” She admits to have been influenced by bioscientific ways of thinking. How Like A Leaf gives the reader a unique insight to another dimension of feminist theory through scientific analysis. It has a diverse approach in answering life’s most complicated questions.
Exercise From How to Read:
I used the historical approach and biological perspective in doing my how to read exercise and as result I realized that there is something to be said about the correlation between biology and life’s experiences. It is a form of science because you can’t have experiences without cells that makeup an organism that creates life. Historically I’ve followed the life of Haraway to observe how her life has concluded through the development of bioscience and since her first thought in this particular theoretical way of thinking.
List of Topics for Discussion:
I found the book a bit difficult to understand without reading her previous work. I would like to discuss her other books to get a clearer idea of this particular type of theory.
How does feminism come to fruition through biology and how does gender develop in the same scope?
The effect of technology and science on gender and feminist studies?
My research on Haraway is that her work is in the History of Science and her interest are feminist theory, cultural and historical studies of science and technology, relation of life and human sciences, and human-animal relations.
Summary: How Like a Leaf
Goodeve’s interview with feminist historian Donna Haraway centers on her life from childhood to adulthood and how her culture and environment shaped her thinking as a child and an adult. Drawing on scientific themes such as biology, genetics, philosophy, Haraway draws a connection between science and the science of gender, race and species. Haraway emphasizes her love for biology and using biology and other sciences to explain issues such as gender and race. Brought up in a deeply rooted Catholic family, Haraway felt need to break away from home when deciding what college she would attend and saw college a way to explore other world perspectives other than her own. She discusses in great detail her personal relationships with her students as well as her lovers and how that has shaped her career as a lecturer and teacher. She further draws a connection between her devotion to Catholism and how it shaped her childhood.
Topics for Discussion
•How culture and experiences can shape one’s life
•Manifesto for Cyborgs
•Identity
•The science of Gender
Insights from the Book
•Haraway's Catholic background is one of the central topics of the dialogue, and it becomes especially important when she discusses her unique approach to the relationship between language and culture. (Tony Scott, Review of “How Like a Leaf, University of Louisville)
•Haraway describes how the genehas become a kind of cultural and scientific fetish. Popular media often locates the essence of human life, its origins and possibilities, in the gene, which it tends to describe as static and extremely deterministic. Haraway notes that the gene has thus gradually slipped from being a code used to describe a particular aspect of human life to being at the center of life itself. (Tony Scott, Review of “How Like a Leaf, University of Louisville)
SUMMARY:
“How Like a Leaf” is a book comprised of mini-interviews with acclaimed theorist Donna J. Haraway. The interviews are conducted by freelance writer Thyrza Nichols Goodeve who titles each interview and groups them into numbered chapters. The book consists of a total of five chapters, and though the interviews are too numerous to name, some include “The History She Was Born Into,” “Disease is a Relationship,” “More Than a Metaphor,” “A Gene is Not a Thing,” and “Cyborg Surrealisms.” These chapters cover everything from Haraway’s background growing up, to her intricate love interests, to her many complex scientific, feminist, and political theories.
Many of Haraway's theories require the same reconceptualizations that are the very basis of our class. During the interview entitled “While Staying connected,” Haraway reflects on the reconceptualization of the feminist movement since the 70’s, explaining that “It has come to mean a much narrower thing than it did in the 1970’s when feminist theory was much more inclusive…the psychoanalytical, literary, and film theory dimensions have co-opted the name ‘feminist theory’” (37). While In “Simians, Cyborgs, and Women,” Haraway advocates for a reconceptualization in the biological field, specifically the reconceptualization of “difference.” In her own words, Haraway says, “’Biopolitics’ is centrally concerned with the way ‘difference’ is mapped into the discourse of immunology as antagonistic and what would happen if we could think of difference differently” (70). This reconceptualization and the previous one are only two examples of Haraway’s many diverse, unique, and cross-sectional reconceptualizations presented throughout the interview.
BIOGRAPHY:
Haraway was born on September 6th 1994 in Denver Colorado. Haraway’s father was a sportswriter and her mother was not employed. Growing up, she was raised in a strong Catholic environment, and even considered being a nun. However, as Haraway grew older her interest shifted towards science, and she ultimately graduated Colorado University with a degree in zoology, as well as philosophy. She then went on to earn a PhD from Yale. Haraway also pursued her interest in feminism, teaching Women’s Studies at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to Women’s Studies, Haraway also taught General science for some time at the University of Hawaii. Currently she is both a professor and a chair member of the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Her works include “Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology,” “Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science,” “Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature,” and lastly “Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan©Meets_ OncoMousetm.”
Above all Haraway is known for creating theories through a cross-sectional approach, giving special emphasis to feminism, technology, politics, and biology.
FORM:
The book is in interview form, though not entirely comprised of questions and answers. There are instances throughout the book when Goodeve presents Haraway with her own opinions and then records Haraway’s responses. The interviews themselves are fluid, though Goodeve divides them up into very small pieces and groups them into numbered chapters. As a result, Goodeve’s organization does not always make for a linear read. Most significant about the form of this book, however, is that it is the first time Haraway speaks “in a direct and non-academic voice.”
VIOLATED ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Science is factual and therefore not influenced by society.
2. Living with a previous lover and a current one is necessarily complicated.
3. Feminism cannot be expressed through science.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Haraway describes Catholicism as a major part of her early childhood, do you
ever notice Catholic influence in her theories?
2. Haraway made a pretty rare transition from Catholicism and anti-abortion
beliefs to the study of science and feminism, why do you think so many other
people are not able to challenge the principles of their religion?
3. What do you think of Goodeve’s statement that Haraway exemplifies her
theories in her relationships?
To begin with, the composition of How Like a Leaf was sufficiently brilliant as it was directly reflective of Haraway’s particular research methodology. Her work is entirely interdisciplinary as this is the only way she believes we can truly understand the entities that she discusses. In the formation of this book, Goodeve intertwined the experiences of Haraway’s life directly with the work that Haraway had done over the years as they directly influenced and shaped each other.
Speaking specifically about the content, this piece touches on facets of society, culture, philosophy, human development, human adaptation, and so on, with a fundamental grounding in the explorative and transgressive study of biology. Haraway talks about ways in which westernized science has dominated concepts of naturalization and discusses the importance of reconceptualizing this perspective. She advocates for a fluid, multi-disciplinary approach to the stagnant nature of modern science especially as it informs repercussions on race, gender and organic development. The complexity of the work Haraway discusses strikes me as possibly the most poignant that I have seen, as it does not shy away from the almost impossible and indomitable nature of understanding life sciences as a single entity. It faces these complexities head on without minimizing the subject to its individual aspects and rather creating an entirely new context to discuss them.
Discussion Questions:
1. Did Haraway’s lifestyle influence her work or did her work influence her lifestyle? Possibly both?
2. Is an entirely interdisciplinary approach translatable to the affected masses?
3. How important do you think the study of genetics is to her work as a formative tool?
How Like A Leaf -Donna J. Haraway
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.
Topics to Discuss
•Haraways methodologies that everything reverts back to biology
•Haraways “trickster” as a major theme in all the essays
•In today’s society are we ever going to reach a cyborg surrealism?
•Why was this book called “How like a leaf?”
How to Read:
About the Author: Haraway is a professor at the University of California teaching the History of Consciousness. Her ideologies are mostly based on biology. She is a feminist in which she focuses on the scientific aspects of life such as primatology. In college, she triple majored in zoology, philosophy and literature.
Form of text: The form of text was a free flowing interview done by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. The interview was very intellectual and profound. The aura of the interview was light and at the same time deep. There was an ongoing connection between Goodeve and Haraway that made the reader intrigued to keep reading.
Violated Assumptions
- Everything cannot all come back to the basis of biology.
-Haraway's theory of Cyborg Surrealisms
- how the unconscious process is just an individual process
Summary
After reading Donna Haraway’s interview “How Like a Leaf”, I was completely shocked, yet also excited about the various intellectual frontiers that Haraway has pursued while still relating them to gender studies. This book is essentially in an interview or conversational format in which Haraway discusses her personal life story, with topics ranging from her relationships to her role in gender studies to the books that she has written. The book begins as Haraway basically talks about her family, especially her parents and the role that they had in her life, including the early death of her mother when Haraway was sixteen. She discusses the relationships that she has had throughout her life and how she has struggled in identifying her sexuality. Haraway goes into detail about the various fields of study that she tried before deciding to combine all of her interests. She also discusses her history of jobs at numerous colleges before she found herself at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a professor in the History-Consciousness Department. The first half of the book mainly focused on Donna Haraway’s personal life.
The second half of the interview consists more of Haraway discussing her dissertation, her books, and her work in feminist theory. First of all, she discusses her interest in primatology as she wrote a book called, “Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science.” Secondly, she talks about the meaning of her theory of cyborgs and the book, “The Cyborg Manifesto”, that she wrote explaining this theory. Haraway says that most of her books have their foundations in science and biology, but also reach out to and relate to the field of gender studies. It is truly amazing how she is able to connect all of her unrelated interests into this one theory. After talking about several of her other books, Haraway reflected on the moments in writing her books that were most meaningful to her. She says, “My sense of intricacy, interest, and pleasure- as well as the intensity- of how I imagined how like I leaf I am.” Thus, this idea ultimately became the title for this interview. After reading this book, Haraway is definitely the most radical feminist I have read about in terms of her intelligence in a wide variety of subjects, not just gender studies or feminism.
After going over the “How to Read” handout, I found that looking at the form of the text in this particular interview definitely made a difference in how I read the book. It was a dialogue between two women that covered everything from Haraway’s personal life to her professional jobs to her various books and theories. In this sense, I don’t think that we could say that it is only a biography because it is also very informative in terms of reading about her theories and the ideas behind them. Because of the conversational style, I found this book very easy to read and to follow along with. I also looked at the book’s mood in order to understand more closely what was being discussed. While I think that the second half of her book with many of her theories and books has an academic tone and is sometimes completely data-filled, I think that the mood in the rest of it seem to be very passionate and genuine as Haraway is able to freely and proudly talk about their life experiences and her accomplishments. Looking at the form of the text and the mood of the text were just two ways in which I was able to read this text more closely.
As there are definitely some radical ideas that Donna Haraway puts forth in this book, I have a lot of topics I would like to discuss in class. First of all, I was intrigued at the relationships that Haraway had with gay men, straight men, and bisexual men. I thought it was really interesting that she would be able to live in a house with her husband, her former lover, and his partner. Do you think it would still be possible and acceptable today to have this type of living arrangement? Why or why not? Secondly, as much as Haraway attempted to explain it, I am still not clear on the idea of cyborgs. What exactly are cyborgs? How can we relate the ideas of cyborgs to women’s or gender studies? Finally, as women interested in women’s studies are usually doing work and theory in feminist studies or different sociological studies, I thought it was interesting that Haraway pursued both the fields of biology and women’s studies. How exactly does Haraway connect these two unrelated fields in her work? Do feminists and women’s studies theorists approve of this? Overall, I thought Donna Haraway’s life up to this point had been very interesting. She is truly an intellectual that seems to just have a constant yearning for knowledge and new information. More so than anything, I think it is very admirable that Haraway has practiced and has lived the same thing that she has taught and written about throughout her life.
Violated Assumptions
1. Assumption: Most people interested in gender studies or sociological studies are not as interested in the fields of math or science.
Donna Haraway’s life work has completely proven my assumption to be wrong. After getting an undergraduate degree in zoology, philosophy, and English literature, she went on to graduate school to study the history and philosophy of biology. This is such a wide variety of subjects and ideas that one person would not only be interested in, but would also be able to master. Typically, I think of people as being stronger in the math and science fields or stronger in reading and writing skills. Donna Haraway has certainly proven herself to be strong in both of these very different interests.
2. Assumption: It wouldn’t be acceptable during the late 1970s and early 1980s to live with your husband, your former lover, and his boyfriend.
Donna Haraway seemed to go completely against the social norm in having this living arrangement with these three important people in her life. She really has made it out to be a great utopian arrangement in having them all live together. I very much doubt that this would be socially acceptable in today’s society. As Haraway continually worked for gay rights and was involved in gay activism, she was very adamant about going against the social norms in terms of how society accepts homosexuals. Not only did her former lover and his partner live with her, but her former lover and her husband also had a relationship at one point when they first met.
3. Assumption: The “racial politics” on both the East coast and the West coast would be somewhat similar even though it is racism against two different groups of people.
After working in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University, Haraway moved to the West coast to begin working at University of California, Santa Cruz in the History-Consciousness Department. After thinking that the racial politics were black and white as she saw in Baltimore, it was completely different in Santa Cruz as there were many Mexican and Chicano students that brought a whole different array of discriminations and prejudices. The woman who interviewed Haraway commented that moving from the East coast to the West coast was in a sense, like traveling to another country. Because the racism is against two completely different groups, the stereotypes are different and the two races are treated in very different ways.
Summary
“How Like a Leaf” is an interview of Donna Haraway conducted by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. The interview dives into her childhood and how those experiences greatly influenced her current works. Her experience of growing up catholic, middle class, and pro-life and currently having ideas that directly conflict with what she was taught to value as a child. She demonstrates how socialization directly influenced her logical development, and combines her knowledge of philosophy and biology, to create theories that are based on technological, biological, and cultural practices. It’s clear from the interview that she is very unconventional in her thinking, which is probably what makes her theories regarding the relationship between culture and language so insightful. Overall, the book sometimes was difficult to follow because of the normal conversation discussion being combined with a discussion of theories with new jargon and theoretical concepts.
About the Author
Donna J. Haraway is currently a professor and former chair of the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of a number of books, however, the most highly regard is her 1991 book Simians, Cyborgs, and Women : The Reinvention of Nature. She is considered a postmodern feminist theorist and primarily focuses on the cultural and historical context in relations to technology, biology and politics. Learning that she has a background in biology, zoology, and philosophy allowed me to understand that she could be able to demonstrate the correlations between topics which intersectionality are not discussed.
Violated Assumption
· That not all people find it overly difficult to apply what they teach to their personal lives including romantic relationships
Topics for Discussion
· Manifesto for Cyborgs
· The benefits of combining science with feminism. Can it be what is needed to get wmst academia out of its rut?
How Like a Leaf is a book compiled of an interview conducted by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve eith Donna Haraway. The book begins with a description of the scenery where the interview is conducted, in Haraway’s house. The interview begins with Haraway’s childhood, which played a significant part in her studies and lifestyle. Her father was a sports writer and sparked her interest in words and conveying ideas to others. Goodeve intertwines the experiences of Haraway along with the works that she has done to express her ideas about culture, society, human development, etc. Haraway’s interest in science directly influences her studies and theories. Using her deep rooted faith in the Catholic church and her love for biology and sciences, Haraway has developed her own ideas on the construction or race and gender and Goodeve’s interview displays how these ideas came about. She also discusses Haraway’s relationships and devotion to her students at the University of California, Santa Cruz along with the way in which her relationships with her lovers have shaped her life experience. I believe that the interview aspect of the book made a connection with the reader. It allows the reader to believe that there is a conversational aspect to the information and allows them to connect with the interviewee. Also, the reader may be more accepting to the ideas of Haraway if they can see her background and know the thought process behind the ideas.
Discussion Questions
1) How can a person’s background shape the individual’s thoughts and ideas, which lead to actions?
2) Can there always be a tie between religion and sciences or are the discrepancies often in the way?
3) Discuss further the cyborg
4) Discuss the Utopian Relationship
How Life a Leaf is an interview with Donna Haraway by Thryza Nichols Goodeve. Haraway is a History of Conciousness professor at the University of California. Haraway studied metaphor and how it shapes research in developmental biology. Her work makes her an important scientist and feminist, as she places importance on interdisciplinary work. Additionally, she has lectured in feminist theory and technoscience.
The interview beings with Haraway’s childhood in Colorado, and Haraway indicates that she was heavily influenced by her Catholic upbringing. Haraway aspired as a child to become a nun, and demonstrated a great deal of interest in both religion and the sciences.
When Haraway grew up, she married a gay man, Jaye. When they divorced, they continued their close relationship and later on, until Jaye and his partner died of AIDS. Haraway was already in a relationship with Rusten, and she wrote books about relationships – how they work as a whole and how pieces of relationships work.
Scientists felt criticized by Haraway as racist and sexist when she completed work on “Primate Visions.” A collection of her essays, “Simions, Cyborgs, and Women,” explains the relationship between science and the human social movement.
Discussion Topics:
1. How does our education system allow for interdisciplinarity? How does it deprive us of this?
2. When do we make the connection between feminism and science? Do we, or do we leave it behind?
3. Can religion be reconciled with feminism? Science?
Insights from how to read handout:
Doing background information on Haraway allowed me insight into the great deal of education she has. Haraway studied zoology, philosophy, English, and developmental biology. Her academic background is both inspiring and intimidating. She certainly makes use of her interdisciplinary background in her work.
SUMMARY PAPER #4 & VIOLATED ASSUMPTIONS - How Like a Leaf
Summary
In the book How Like a Leaf, Donna J. Haraway is interviewed by Thyrza Nichols Goodeye about different aspects and points in her life which contributed to the person she is and the work that she has done thus far in her life. Haraway, a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz, has written many works that relate to relationships, gender, and have a special focus on science, especially that of biology, which Haraway deems to be “an inexhaustible source of troping,” a world “full of imagination.” One of her works that is especially focused on in this interview is Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. In this work, Haraway looks at gender from both a biological and sociological standpoint. Her interest in science fuels the work, as she combines feminism and science to delve into gender issues. How Like a Leaf is broken down in an interesting way; separated into five chapters, How Like a Leaf ranges in discussing Haraway’s life from early childhood to adulthood, to her beliefs, ideals, and theories surrounding science and feminism.
Biography of the author/How to read
· Born on September 6, 1944 in Denver, Colorado
· Acquired B.S., M.S., and PhD degrees
· Professor of Women’s Studies and General Science at the University of Hawaii [as well as] Johns Hopkins University, now at the University of California in Santa Cruz
· Works include: Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, etc.
· Recipient of numerous awards/honors, including the J.D. Bernal Award
· This book was written in the form of an interview
· The language of the book was relatable; not very academic in terms of writing style
Topics to discuss/Violated Assumptions
· The idea of cyborgs!??
· I found Donna and Jaye’s relationship very interesting and don’t know that I could be in a relationship like that. What made their relationship initially work? Would you be able to do that? Why or why not?
· How big of an impact does biology have in gender structuring?
· How much of an impact did Haraway’s experiences during her childhood/adolescence mold her into the person she became as an adult? Does science play any role in one’s behavioral upbringing/the person one becomes?
· I was surprised to see how much emphasis Haraway placed on biology in correlation with gender structuring because although I had heard biology discussed along with gender studies before, Haraway talked about different points of biology and their effects on gender that I hadn’t thought about before.
· I was surprised to see that Donna and Jaye still maintained a good relationship with each other despite the controversial and “unorthodox” manner in which they lived; I just figured that type of situation would be hard to live in.
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