Summary
Contents
This book provides a clear, focused road map to the study of the body in society. It defines, explains and applies core topics relating to the human body demonstrating how we approach it as a social phenomenon.
Each concept: Includes an easy to understand definition; Provides real-world examples; Gives suggestions for further reading; Is carefully cross-referenced to other related concepts
Written to meet the needs of the modern student this book offers the basic materials, tools and guidance needed study and write about the body.
Cyborgs
Definition The term cyborg was first coined in the 1960s in science fiction. A cyborg is a biological organism that has been combined with cybernetics (robotics) to create a cyber-organism: hence, cyborg. This remains a familiar trope in science fiction. For example, the cybermen in Dr Who and the Terminator in the movies of the same name are cyborgs. In terms of the body in society, the cyborg is a term usually associated with the work of Donna Haraway, who used it to describe her theorization of the human body as no longer straightforwardly organic. A cyborg, in Haraway's terms, is any human who has had a technological intervention that is taken into, appended to or an extension of his or her body that ...
