Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age / Edition 1

by Chris Hables Gray

Overview

The growing synergy of humans and technology—from dialysis to genetically altered foods to PET scans—is transforming how we view our minds and our bodies. But how has it changed the body politic? How can we forge a society that protects the rights of human and cyborg alike?

The creator of the cult classic Cyborg Handbook, Chris Hables Gray, now offers the first guide to "posthuman" politics, framing the key issues that could threaten or brighten our technological future. For good or ill, politics has already been cyborged in ways that touch us all: On-line voting promises to change who participates. Wars are won on video screens. Biotechnological advances— cloning, sexual prostheses, gene patents—are redefining life, death, and family in ways that strain the social contract. In the face of these advances, visions of the cyborg future range from the utopian to the nightmarish, from a spiritual super-race transcending the body's confines to a soulless Borg consuming human individuality.

Only with a broad, historically rich and ethically grounded understanding of these issues, Gray argues, can we combat the threats to our freedom and even our survival. A work of vision and imagination, Cyborg Citizen lays the groundwork for the participatory evolution of our society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415919784
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/20/2000
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Authored by Gray, Chris Hables

Table of Contents

A Note on Texts. Slouching Toward the Posthuman-Does Participatory Evolution Require Participatory Government? Post Modern Politics. 1 The Cyborg Body Politic. 2 Citizenship in the Age of Electronic Production. 3 Cybocracy, Mobocracy, and Democracy. 4 Cyborg Warriors. Promulgating Cyborgs. 5 Infomedicine and the New Body. 6 Cybernetic Human Reproduction. 7 Enabled Cyborgs, Living and Dead. 8 The Hopeful Monsters of Genetic Engineering. Cyborg Society. 9 Prosthetic Territories: Cybercolonizations. 10 Cyborg Families. 11 Sex Machines, Human Beings, In-betweens. 12 Taylored Lives: Microserfs and Superheroes in the Age of Semiintelligent Machines. Cyberology. 13 Sciences of the Third Millenium. 14 Posthuman Possibilities.

Editorial Reviews

"[An] eruption of tomorrow's topics..." — Andrei Yuri Lubomudrov, Willamette Week
"...insightful and well formulated." — Andrei Yuri Lubomudrov, Willamette Week
"An intriguing social survey perfect for discussion groups." — Reviewer's Bookwatch
"...a supremely readable book, enlivened by weird science and slap-shot one-liners." — Wired, Mark Dery
"...Cyborg Citizen is a ripping good yarn-just the thing for Dr. Moreau's waiting room." — Wired, Mark Dery
"In Cyborg Citizen, Gray manages to bridge the understanding gap between technology and politics. He uses a wealth of historical perspective to look intot he future of a cyber-augmented culture, and show us with depth and clarity what the changes will mean to our lives as individuals and as a society. The book is readable by people with all different levels of technological sophistication, and has much new to offer no matter how much you have already thought about the issues." — Terry Winograd
"Cyborg Citizen is an accessible, comprehensive, and intelligent guide to the complexities of citizenship in the posthuman world. Sprinkled with first-person accounts, Cyborg Citizen is no dry academic treatise but an invaluable and useful guide to the ethical challenges of a future that is already upon us." — Katherine Hayles, UCLA
Volume 31
"Cyborg Citizen provides an excellent introduction to the new normal and it is a worthy contribution to Chris Hables Gray ongoing project." — Veronica Hollinger, Science Fiction Studies

From the Publisher

...Cyborg Citizen is a ripping good yarn-just the thing for Dr. Moreau's waiting room.

Wired

...insightful and well formulated.
—Willamette Week

Andrei Yuri Lubomudrov

An intriguing social survey perfect for discussion groups.

Reviewer's Bookwatch

The growing synergy between humans and technology is changing how people view their minds and bodies, says cyberculture specialist and social activist Gray (cultural studies of science and technology, U. of Great Falls, Montana), but he investigates how it has changed the body politic. He explores how to forge a society that protects the rights of human and cyborg alike. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

The growing blend of humans and technology, from PET scans to genetic food entering the body, is changing concepts of the mind/body connection and has fostered a new era of 'cyborg' blends. Cyborg Citizen offers the first guide to 'posthuman politics', examining the key issues which blend political rights issues with technological advancement. An intriguing social survey perfect for discussion groups.