Hypertext: Week 2 - Cam

When trying to read "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s" by Donna Haraway, I found the body of work to be quite convoluted and intricate. My favorite description of the Cyborg is Haraway describing it as a reconstructed being of "post-modern collective and personal self.” One of the most interesting parts of the essay was reading about Haraway tackles the concept of the Cyborg as being able to break the barrier of human gender and identity, rendering itself being its own existent being. Reading the perspective of someone writing about hypertext from a socialist-feminist perspective was quite intriguing, and I definitely have not read an essay about a facet of literature quite like this one. I feel the reason why the essay slowly became less convoluted was the helpful footnotes on each page, and scanning them as I proceeded through the piece added additional insight that made the points Haraway was making feel more succinct.

Personally, I feel my favorite hypertext body of work that we read and examined this week was My Body, a Wunderkammer by Shelley Jackson. One of the most interesting components of Jackson's story is the interface in which Jackson delivers and breaks up the story. Not only are you able to select several from several parts of a body to begin the story, but the story ties back into itself no matter which part of the body. Jackson uses beautiful imagery and descriptions that subtly create a vision of what someone's body goes through as they hit puberty and enter adolescence. When writing about her arms, Jackson describes what she felt like when she was twelve years old and boys began to notice the development of her arms, saying that, "The scant flesh lying so mild over the bone, the slender arms, as uniformly tubular as sleeves." This type of story could, in theory, be told in the traditional novel text format, flowing from chapter to chapter as Jackson were to describe the evolution of her body as she matured. Despite this, the format in which Jackson decided to adapt this story makes the most sense for the type of story she was writing. The story Jackson told is based upon the relationship between people and their bodies as they change, and this emotional relationship in itself is non-linear, identical to the story format of My Body, a Wunderkammer. I am someone who does not have the best relationship with how I view my body, and seeing the intersection of conflicting thoughts from someone else's perspective certainly gave me a newfound appreciation for the body I was given.


Comments

  1. Cameron WhitneyFebruary 20, 2023 at 8:17 AM

    Hi Cam! I really love your in depth exploration of My Body, a Wunderkammer. I felt very similarly about this piece of work and I'm glad it had a positive effect on you as well. I'm glad you talked about how it ties back into itself no matter which part you click, I also thought that was very interesting and cool!

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  2. Dr. MFebruary 20, 2023 at 12:29 PM

    I'm glad you found this appreciation (and perhaps inspiration) through Jackson's work. I love this positivity she layers on as well... there are many things she loves about her body or at least appreciates or is intrigued by. Making it a hypertext really serves to add a layer of exploration and how we have to dig deeper to find these vulnerabilities and deeply personal thoughts inside the cabinet, while the physical body is merely the entry point.

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  3. Hannah S.February 21, 2023 at 6:36 AM

    It's interesting that you pointed out how it could be presented in the same way as a traditional text. While it could be, it's clear that the impact on the reader probably would not be the same. This, like a lot of other hypertext pieces, are enhanced by the way they are presented.

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