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In Technologies of the Gendered Body, boundaries between bodies and technologies are blurred when author Anne Balsamo describes forms of technological embodiment in contemporary US culture that illustrate "the ways in which gendered identities are technologically produced for material bodies" (p. 154). In an analysis of bodybuilding, cosmetic surgery, reproductive technologies, virtual reality and science fiction narratives, Balsamo reveals the cultural contexts that inscribe technologies of gendered bodies. Balsamo argues that technologies as social, economic and institutional forces too often reproduce, rather than challenge or obscure, gendered identities of material bodies.
To set the context for her analysis of technologies, Balsamo begins with a concise and insightful analysis of the relevance of cyborgs in popular culture and feminist postmodern theory. In the essay entitled "Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism," she describes cyborgs of popular culture -- Frankenstein's monster, Maria from Metropolis, Max Headroom, RoboCop and Terminator toys -- as familiar technological and organic hybrids of contemporary everyday life. She lays out the framework for her analysis by drawing on insights from feminist theorists (Donna Haraway, Ruth Bleir, Paula Treichler) who provide discursive readings of cyborgs. She also challenges panic postmodernists (Jean Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, and Arthur Kroker) who do away with the body in postmodern cultural theory. To reinsert...