"I Cannot Read This Story Without Rewriting It": Haraway, Cyborg Writing, and Burkean Form

In this study, my overarching principle is that readers’ ideologies are likely to influence the way they read texts, and that texts, in turn, often influence readers’ preconceived ideologies. This thesis is an attempt to understand how to use the theories of Kenneth Burke, Donna Haraway, and rhetoric of technology scholars toward the goal of social change in favor of Haraway’s cyborg political model, which stresses the need for unity within feminism, socialism, and other politically left groups. Burke argues that form in texts is the creation and fulfillment of desires in the audience. I examine several of Burke’s texts to construct a genealogy of Burkean form. Burke states that desire is connected to the psychology of the audience, in which ideology plays a key role. Burke concludes that readers’ ideologies are rooted in economic class.

I then look to Haraway, who gives a more accurate theory of factors that influence ideology in her notion of the informatics of domination, which include racism, patriarchy, capitalism, heterosexism, and colonialism, and rhetoric scholars who have responded to Haraway’s cyborg theory. I review rhetoric scholarship that is concerned with the idea of cyborg writing, and point out ways the rhetoric community has implemented Haraway’s theory well and ways they have misunderstood it. I conclude that cyborg writing has been associated too closely with hypertext, and that more focus should be given to the political content of texts. I argue that postcolonial literature, which is most often written from the perspective of marginalized groups, is a stronger and more thought-provoking example of cyborg writing, even if it is not hypertext. I also call for a renewed emphasis on Haraway’s argument that academics need to be more involved in the activist community if social change in favor of the cyborg is to occur.