While introducing A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway admits that some parts of her essay contradict each other. Where does this happen, and what is the rhetorical effect? What are the strengths and limitations of such contradictions in her analysis?

At the time Haraway was writing A Cyborg Manifesto, feminism was in the midst of the “sex wars,” which deeply divided feminist thinkers on issues related to pornography, sex positivity, sex work, and transgender women. Haraway does not explicitly discuss these issues in her essay. How does A Cyborg Manifesto implicitly support or reject some of these ideas? How does it reflect the state of feminism in the 1980s more generally?

Donna Haraway collaborated with the artist Lynn Randolph, who created the cover art to Haraway’s book Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (within which A Cyborg Manifesto was republished). After looking up the painting, how does it represent the essay?

In the introductory section of A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway writes, “Ironically, it might be the unnatural cyborg women making chips in Asia and spiral dancing in Santa Rita Jail whose constructed unities will guide effective oppositional strategies” (14). The final words of the essay are, “Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.” Research the history of “the spiral dance.” What is its significance in A Cyborg Manifesto? How does it illuminate the essay’s key themes and ideas?

Choose a relevant science fiction novel not mentioned in A Cyborg Manifesto. How could Haraway’s cyborg theory apply to it? In what ways does it challenge or diverge from Haraway’s conception of the cyborg?

Analyze how Haraway’s views may have been shaped by the politics and technology of the 1980s. Which of her predictions didn’t come to fruition? What parts of her theory would be different if she wrote the essay now?

A Cyborg Manifesto is sometimes criticized for being overly theoretical, though this is assumed by most scholars to be intentional on Donna Haraway’s part. Research the genre/style “écriture féminine.” How does A Cyborg Manifesto mirror this style, and what is the effect of writing it this way?

Haraway’s chart under “The Informatics of Domination” includes a lengthy list of organic concepts and their informatic conversions. Some of these are straightforward and discussed at length throughout the essay, but some are less obvious. How do the conversions from “realism” to “postmodernism,” “small group” to “subsystem,” and “Freud” to Lacan” play into A Cyborg Manifesto’s main ideas?