rating: ***    H+    saggistica

Descrizione

Amazon.com
Some great science fiction has asked about robots and the right to vote--but what happens when we're 51 percent artificial ourselves? Cyberculture scholar Chris Hables Gray looks at the ever-changing human body in Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age and makes some well-educated guesses on the makeup of the future cybernetic body politic. Though he does go out of his way to remind the reader that nearly all of us are bioenhanced (that is a vaccination scar, isn't it?), he's neither a chrome-eyed Extropian nor a Rifkinesque fear-mongerer. His thesis is refreshingly simple in a world overfilled with postmodern complexity: we're changing our bodies more and more radically, and we ought to think about how this will change our way of life.

Examining health care, social interactions, and politics, Gray's focus is largely on particular modifications and enhancements such as prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, performance-enhancing drugs, and their descendants. The book never dips into freak show territory, though; even if Gray uses colorful examples to illustrate his points, he still maintains a humanistic attitude throughout. His simple thesis, coupled with this attitude, create a web of thought that is simultaneously entertaining and enlightening. Though our track record on preemptively dealing with change is spotty at best, reading Cyborg Citizen is still a good prescription for keeping the posthuman jitters at bay. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
[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

Keywords

cyborg medicine, cyborg society, cyborg body politic, participatory evolution, cyborg citizenship, cyborg technologies, cyborg babies, postmodern war, cyborg politics, artificial liver, transsexual surgery, penile prosthesis,