Kerim Can Yazgnolu Prof. Dr.

Serpil Oppermann 6/716 Contemporary Trends in Philosophy January 2011

Becoming Prosthetic Body It is important to remark that the binary oppositions such as mind/body, man/woman, culture/nature, organic/inorganic are deconstructed by means of the writings of Derrida and other postmodernist theorists. We live in the age of informatics, and [i]nformation technologies are infiltrating every aspect of our life and connecting our bodies ineluctably to vast cyber networks (Tajiri 2). It is clearly seen that the question of bodily boundaries should be taken into consideration in that we are becoming prosthetic body. This study sets out to scrutinise the question of becoming prosthetic body in relation to cyborgbodies, toxic and nomadic bodies and apparatuses by offering novel insights into the texts of Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Stacy Alaimo and Karen Barad. As Sigmund Freud puts it, first of all, [m]an has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times (44). Freud comments upon the new technology through these statements in the modernist times. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the clear-cut distinction between the body (considered internal and organic) and technology (considered external and inorganic) is being rendered obsolete by advanced medical technologies including genetic engineering (Tajiri 2) in the postmodernist age. Freud uses the term prosthesis as an artificial organ in Civilization and its Discontents, but my discussion walks into an idea that the term prosthesis is useful for

addressing the general cultural situation in which the distinction between the body and technology (and by extension, inside and outside, self and other) is blurred or abolished (Tajiri 2). From this framework, it is suggested that we begin to become prosthetic bodies. The blurring of bodily boundaries means that we are more flexible, fluid and multiple like nomadic subjects/bodies developed by Rosi Braidotti. Moreover, when we look at the concept of nomadic subjects/bodies, Rosi Braidotti provides a particularly valuable perspective for understanding techno-bodies in relation to cyborgbodies in Meta(l)morpheses: The Becoming Machine. She argues that the body can be regarded as a sensor, an integrated site of information networks (587). It is obvious that the concept of body has been altered in such a way that the new discursive-material values begin to be inscribed in body in the light of new technological scientific developments in our age. It can be argued that techno-bodies and nomadic bodies are in fact transformed into prosthetic bodies which entail both of them in a larger sense. As Braidotti suggests, prosthetic bodies are multiple, complex, multi-layered selves like embodied nomadic subjects (594). What is more important is that cyborg is a novel and challenging concept suggested by Donna Haraway, who explores a dialogue between biology, anthropology, cybernetics, and the humanities that rejects the usual affiliation between social critique and anti-naturalism (Cahoone 464). It is necessary to begin with the question of what cyborg is in that it has affected every domain of philosophy and science in our age. Haraway states that [a] cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction (149). It can be deduced that a cyborg is an amalgam of organic and inorganic, nature and culture, man and woman, and human and machine. By means of the cyborg, we can transgress the bodily boundaries. It is clearly seen that the body is by no means a fixed entity. It is important that Haraway attempts to subvert the binary oppositions through the concept of cyborg by highlighting the fact that

certain dualisms have been persistent in Western traditions; they have all been systematic to the logics and practises of domination of women, people of colour, nature, workers, animals- in short, domination of all constituted as others, whose task is to mirror the self. Chief among these dualisms are self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man. (177)

It can be said that the prosthetic body functions like a cyborg in the sense that it blurs the boundaries of binary oppositions. That is to say, a cyborgbody becomes a prosthetic body in that sense. It is worth remarking that Braidotti points out that [a]s a hybrid, or body-machine, the cyborg is a connection-making entity, a figure of inter-relationality, receptivity and global communication that deliberately blurs categorical distinctions (590). Braidottis insightful inquiry into the cyborgbody is of great importance to understand the concept of the prosthetic body. She contends that
the body in the cyborg model is neither physical nor mechanical - nor is it only textual. As a counter-paradigm for the interaction [intraaction] between the inner and the external reality, it offers a reading not only of the body, not only of machines but rather of what goes on between them, as a new powerful replacement of the mind-body debate - the cyborg is a post-metaphysical construct. (590)

It is clearly stated that the cyborgbody is a kind of prosthetic body, and entails techno-bodies and nomadic bodies. Deleuze and Guattari suggest a body without organs in A Thousand Plateaus, and they state that we are living through a mutation, a transformation (149). Then, the question of what the prosthetic body without auxiliary organs means comes to our mind. The answer is that the prosthetic body is a kind of hybrid, and the auxiliary organs are unnecessary since the prosthetic body has incorporated them into its own body and it functions as a whole. The statement that it functions as a whole is both wrong and paradoxical in that the prosthetic body has a rhizomatic structure, and it is multiple, heterogeneous and fluid, not fixed. The prosthetic body is both physical and abstract. Bodily

boundaries are blurred and transgressed. It has no gender. It can be said that it is a queer prosthetic body. Whether the cyborgbody becomes a masculine, militarised body or not is an ongoing contentious issue among the cyber-feminists. Braidotti remarks that cyborgs become a kind of images of hyper-masculine killing machines (588) in the popular science-fiction films such as Terminator. The question of gendered identity/body comes to surface. Discursive-material practices play a vital role in constructing the gendered body. Karen Barad provides an explanation for this. It will be explained in this study after it is explained that the toxic body is whether a kind of prosthetic body or not. In addition to the fact that the prosthetic body is a kind of cyborgbody and technobody, it is important to note that Stacy Alaimo suggests the concept trans-corporeality in her writing Trans-Corporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature. Human bodies can be considered to be inseparable from nature. It entails nonhuman animals. That is, material world is important in the sense that bodies are constructed through material agency. In that sense, the prosthetic body can be deemed as an entangled body of material and discursive, natural and cultural, biological and textual (Alaimo 238). Alaimo contends that biological determinism is nonsense, and the biological body is malleable and changeable (241). It is suggested that Alaimo emphases the importance of the changeability of biological bodies by remarking that [t]he concept of the agency of biological bodies is crucial for understanding biological entities as complex and ever-transforming (245). The prosthetic body is transformable like a biological body, as well. It is significant that Alaimo puts forward an idea of toxic bodies by remarking that all bodies, human and otherwise, are, to greater or lesser degrees, toxic at this point in history (260). It is stated that various toxic chemicals are everywhere in our life, and we cannot escape from the repercussions of that chemicals. It is worth remarking that
[t]oxic bodies are certainly not essentialist, since they are volatile, emergent, and continually evolving, in and of themselves, but also as they encounter different sorts of chemicals as they move from

neighbourhoods or jobs, or as they otherwise encounter various products or pollutants. These bodies are certainly post-Humanist, not merely because their borders are exceedingly leaky, but because even ones own putatively individual experience and understanding of ones body is mediated by science, medicine, epidemiology, and the swirl of subcultures, organizations, Web sites, and magazines devoted to exposing dangers and cultivating alternative and oppositional practices and pleasures. (Alaimo 262)

It is from the abovementioned statements that we can deduce that the prosthetic body is a kind of toxic body, and we are becoming toxic bodies, prosthetic bodies in the post-industrial era. Toxic bodies disrupt the boundaries of nature and culture. It is clearly seen that toxic chemical materials function as auxiliary organs that we cannot realise in our quotidian life. Toxic materials are so incorporated into our prosthetic bodies that we do not care about our bodies and our environment where we live. We cannot escape from toxic chemicals in our daily life. We have a rhizomatic structure that interconnects us to other prosthetic toxic bodies in such a way that we are becoming nomadic subjects/bodies. Our prosthetic bodies are becoming organic and inorganic. Moreover, our prosthetic bodies are interconnected with the bodies of nonhuman animals, as well. Nonhuman animals share the same physical and moral spaces with us. They are also toxic bodies, that is, prosthetic bodies. They undergo the same process and transformation as we do. We should care about our prosthetic bodies and other others bodies and the environment in order to live better on earth. It is obvious that we are in a process of transformation in both cultural and material sense. Before examining Karen Barads way of how she looks at the transformation of bodies, we should turn to the idea of the materialisation of gendered bodies suggested by Judith Butler. Furthermore, it is important to note that Judith Butler suggests the notion of gender performativity in the sense that we perform our gender. She explains this notion by stating that performativity can be regarded as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names (2). Butler sees materiality as the effect of power (2). So, our bodies are constituted through the effects of discursive power. She

contends that materialization will be a kind of citationality, the acquisition of being through the citing of power [...] (15). It is clear that through the discursive formations, our gendered bodies are materialised, and come into existence. The materialisation of our bodies is due to the effects of reiterative power of discursive formations. Gender and race are inscribed in the surfaces of our bodies through the effects of power that circulated among people. More important, Karen Barad, who challenges the established notions in the Western philosophy, offers a novel theory of agential realism so as to provide new insights into our world where we live. She poses remarkable questions concerning how important matter is. The dynamism of matter is of great significance to understand the theory of agential realism. She remarks that an agential realist elaboration of performativity allows matter its due as an active participant in the worlds becoming, in its ongoing intra-activity (136). It is salient that matter plays a vital role in shaping or constituting the prosthetic body. What is more important is Barads posthumanist performative account of material bodies (both human and nonhuman) (Barad 139). Agential intra-action is so significant that the concept of prosthesis is here based on this agential realism. The prosthetic body is intra-acting with other materials in such a way that interconnectivity takes place among them. It is important to look at some important concepts in Barads theory. It is explained that phenomena are a kind of entanglement of intra-acting agencies (139). We live within the phenomena. It is accepted that phenomena are constitutive of reality (Barad 140). Barad criticises Butler in that she sees Butlers conception of materialisation as limited to human domain, and it is depended on Foucaults notion of discursive practises (145). Besides, she suggests that apparatuses are specific material-discursive practises (146). The prosthetic body has apparatuses when we think about the auxiliary organs. The prosthetic body is an intra-active becoming. Barad figures out that [a]ll bodies, not merely human bodies, come to matter through the worlds iterative intra-activity its performativity (152). What is important is that the prosthetic body is valid for human and nonhuman bodies. The prosthetic body is an active agent, and

plays an important role in intra-acting with other bodies and materials. Barad illuminates the fact that [b]odies are not objects with inherent boundaries and properties; they are materialdiscursive phenomena (153). Therefore, bodies are part of the phenomena and the world. Due to the fact that the prosthetic body is a part of the world, it can be said that the prosthetic body intra-acts with the world. Bodily boundaries should be taken into account in that the problem arises when the auxiliary organs/apparatuses are active participant in intra-acting with the prosthetic body. For instance, the glasses are auxiliary apparatus for a short-sighted person. These glasses become the extension of the prosthetic body. A wheelchair is another auxiliary apparatus for a disabled person. The glasses and the wheelchair are active apparatuses intra-acting with the prosthetic body. The body of Stephan Hawking exemplifies a prosthetic body which is intra-acting with exterior and interior materials. He communicates by means of a speech device (Barad 159). Hawkings prosthetic body incorporates the auxiliary apparatus, and it by all means becomes a part of Hawkings body. The material entanglement takes place in the prosthetic body of Hawking. The question of bodily boundaries comes to our mind. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the bodily boundaries are leaky, not fixed, and they are open to transformation. The prosthetic/toxic body is leaky as we has mentioned before. It is worth remarking that the posthumanist prosthetic performativity should be taken into account in relation to the intra-activity of human and nonhuman bodies. As in the example of Hawking, our bodies illustrate the posthumanist prosthetic performativity through the intra-actions with other materials, and as a result, the material entanglement takes place. Barad points out that bodies differentially materialize as particular patterns of the world as a result of the specific cuts and reconfiguring that are enacted (176). Through the intra-actions, agential cuts are formed, and these agential cuts effect the separability of subject and object. So, bodily boundaries become clear by means of these agential cuts. In addition, it can be said that the prosthetic body is
a body that has the inorganic other or the outside within it. To be more precise, it is the locus for dynamic interactions [intra-actions] between

the body and material objects (including machines and technological devices), inside and outside, self and other, and for the concomitant problematisation and blurring of these distinctions. (Tajiri 6)

It is clearly stated that the definition of the prosthetic body entails cyborgbody, toxic body and nomadic body. The posthumanist prosthetic performativity will open up a whole new way of understanding the prosthetic entanglement in the world. More importantly, it is worth looking at the representations of the prosthetic body in British fiction. In Becketts trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, the question of the prosthetic body can be seen in relation to the deterioration of the bodies (Tajiri 40). Molloy wants to visit his mother, and he uses bicycle. It is understood that bicycle is becoming an auxiliary apparatus incorporated into the body of Molloy. Molloy becomes a kind of prosthetic body which intra-acts with bicycle. Malone is also dependent on a stick which functions as an auxiliary organ for Malone. It is important that many various

representations of the prosthetic body can be found in the literary and cultural texts. In The Cloning of Joanna May by Fay Weldon, the heroine Joanna May have four unknown clones. It can be said that whether these four clones are part of Joanna May or not is an important issue in that these clones can become the auxiliary apparatuses of May or they are all prosthetic bodies which are part of May. From an engaging perspective, we can interpret the situation of these clones in the sense that what four clones represent is that they are toxic bodies since the fallout from Chernobyl is set as a backdrop in the novel. The prosthetic bodies in this novel are open to different interpretations. Besides, in John Fowless Mantissa, what kind of body is constituted through the character of Erato? Whether Erato is a cyborg or a goddess is scrutinised by Jane OSullivan (Cyborg or Goddess). Erato is like a kind of muse for Miles Green in the novel. However, the female body can become a prosthetic body for Green. When we look at Angela Carters short story Wolf-Alice, the clothes are auxiliary apparatuses for Wolf-Alice since the body of Wolf-Alice is re-constituted through

the intra-activity. In the short story, the body image of Duke comes into existence through intra-acting with Wolf-Alice. The female body of Wolf-Alice is so important that it is an active participant in establishing the image of Duke. In conclusion, we are becoming prosthetic bodies, toxic bodies and cyborgbodies. Matter is an active agent in intra-acting with other discursive-material practices in the worlds becoming. Our bodies are intra-acting with toxic chemicals and various materials in our daily life. The prosthetic body is like a rhizome, and it is heterogeneous, fluid, multiple and nomadic. It is worth remarking that
[t]he postmodernist acknowledgement that all bodies normative and non-normative alike are in a constant process of construction and transformation, brought about not least through interactions [intraactions] in the spatio-temporal dimensions of the social world, means that all are potentially hybrid, nomadic, machinic assemblages. (Shildrick 128)

It is clear that we are in a state of flux, and undergoes a process of transformation like a cyborg with the new techno-scientific developments in our age. We are nomadic subjects that intra-acting with our environment. We will become queer prosthetic bodies through transgressing the fixed boundaries. It is clearly expressed that the posthumanist prosthetic performativity leaves us with a deeper questioning of our constructed bodies. It can be seen that the becoming prosthetic body is a socio-philosophical investigation into the concepts of cyborg and toxic and nomadic bodies in relation to the theory of agential realism.

Works Cited Alaimo, Stacy. Trans-Corporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature. Material Feminisms. Eds. Stacy Alaimo & Susan Hekman. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2008. Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. Braidotti, Rosi. Meta(l)morphoses: The Becoming Machine. Feminist Theory: A Reader. 2nd ed. Eds. Wendy K. Kolmar and Frances Bartkowski. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005.

Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge, 1993. Cahoone, Lawrence. Ed. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell, 2003. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, London: U of Minnesota P, 2005. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its Discontents. New York, London: WW Norton, 1989. Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. O'Sullivan, Jane. "Cyborg or Goddess: Postmodernism and Its Others in John Fowles's Mantissa." College Literature 30.3 (Summer 2003): 109-123. Rpt.

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