CYBORG TEXTUALITY / CYBORG SUBJECTIVITY : A TRANS-MEDIC RE-VISIONING OF ENLIGHTENMENT HUMANISM FOR THE CYBERNETIC ERA

Abstract

This thesis inquires into the relationship between aesthetics and politics, contributing to an ongoing field of inquiry in the relationship of cultural studies to social action. Specifically, this thesis examines and outlines a media-reflexive cyborg textuality in the works and texts analyzed. The author argues that cyborg textuality engenders cyborg subjectivity (a subject's conscious medic engagement), which allows for an enhanced political viability of the subject. The author engages with and combines postmodern, feminist, and technoculture criticism in her inquiry. The author applies these bodies of theory to a trans-medic analysis that moves across media-reflexive and politically charged works in film, creative writing, and visual arts. The hope of the author is to show how one can continually arrive at a re-visioning of enlightenment humanism through a rigorous engagement with challenging texts such as the ones examined herein. Through such re-visioning she argues that more effective social action and implementation of human rights can emerge.