Closer Look: Haraway, Cyborg Manifesto
Overthink
Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.
4.7 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is the way we interact with technology moving us towards a cyborg future? In episode 164 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a closer look at Donna Haraway’s seminal essay, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” in which Haraway critiques the increasing technologization of everyday life and questions what it means to be a feminist and a socialist in the age of informatics and cybernetics. They discuss her critique of identity politics, her notion of the “homework economy,” the increase of miniaturization in technology, and her appeal to pleasure and responsibility. Why should we discard the assumption that technology has deepened mind-body dualism? And what might the theory of the cyborg look like in light of the rise of generative AI? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss how the cyborg can be found in popular media like Severance and Crimes of the Future, and how the cyborg differs to Frankenstein’s monster.
Works Discussed:
Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”
Dave Yan, “Posthuman Creativity: Unveiling Cyborg Subjectivity Through ChatGPT”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Overthink. |
| 0:19.7 | The podcast where your two favorite cyborgs talk about philosophy and everyday life. |
| 0:24.8 | I'm Ellie Anderson. |
| 0:26.3 | And I'm David Pena Guzman. |
| 0:28.0 | As always, for an extended version of this episode and other additional content, check out our substack. |
| 0:35.2 | David, today we're doing a closer look episode on Donna Haraway's essay, The Cyborg Manifesto. |
| 0:42.4 | This is an essay that was published in 1985, and it is a landmark in post-humanist theory, |
| 0:49.2 | feminist theory, post-humanist feminist theory. I feel like it's been, I mean, let's be real. It's been a trendy |
| 0:56.2 | essay among the grad students for a number of decades now. I feel like my students are still talking |
| 1:01.5 | about it. They really wanted to read it this past semester. And then I was like, I couldn't fit |
| 1:05.7 | it in the syllabus. So let's talk about it on overthink. But it was very much, you know, |
| 1:09.9 | something that students were |
| 1:11.1 | discussing a lot when we were in grad school in the 2010s as well. |
| 1:15.0 | The text has had a lot of staying power largely because it's both outlining a really interesting |
| 1:20.8 | critique of some of the dominant discourse that people in these fields have traditionally |
| 1:25.6 | relied on for engaging in the task of social critique. |
| 1:29.0 | And also it's outlining a vision for the future that, you know, may or may not be to our liking. |
| 1:34.9 | We'll talk about what we think about the kind of vision of cyborg futurism that she's talking about. |
| 1:39.8 | But I think it was putting its finger on the pulse of something that was beginning in the 1980s |
| 1:47.2 | and that we are feeling perhaps even more clearly in the 2020s, I would say. |
| 1:53.8 | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 1:54.5 | Because I would say Haraway is working from at least two different angles, both of which |
... |
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