CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Temmes, Maria Ellen Alexandra |
|---|---|
| Title | Reproducing Dichotomies: Queer Posthumanism and Reproduction in Biopolitical State |
| Summary | The aim of my research is to examine how Patricia MacCormack’s vision of queer posthumanism challenges the foundations of the categories formed in relation to the biopolitical state and its side-effect, the anthropological machine. Via her notion of queer posthumanism she questions the base of stable political categories and, thus, demands a more fluid conceptualization of differences. I argue that her vision that in order to obtain hybrid subjectivity, which she sees as a base for a politics of becoming, it is necessary to separate the sexual act from reproduction, stresses that it is not only the cultural representation, but also the material connections, that form the subjectivity in relation to reproduction. I suggest that her requirement to separate the act of sex from reproduction might be problematic because it does not take into consideration how both the man/woman and the human/animal binaries are formed in relation to reproduction. Thus, I propose that instead of trying to challenge the effects of reproduction via scientific practices, it could be more beneficial for queer posthumanism to question the centrality of reproduction in the biopolitical state. Moreover, I argue that it is in the practices of science, especially as it focuses on the molecular, rather than any of its innovations in reproductive technologies, that offer a route for a progressive politics of becoming. |
| Supervisor | Cerwonka Allaine |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/temmes_maria.pdf |
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