Format Questions Regarding Final Paper

[AlexReid]

1. Please follow MLA format. I'm not going to grade you on your full compliance with MLA, but do the best. This includes double-spacing, one-inch margins, etc.

2. The assignment calls for a 10 page paper. That's approximately 3000 words.

As a writer, you never want to be in the position of having to make an effort to reach a length requirement. If you are, then that means you haven't given enough thought, research, and/or effort to your project. People write books about these subjects. Of course they don't write books in 10 days either. Nevertheless, the position you want to be in as a writer is figuring out what to cut from your writing.

Not even the most talented and practiced writers in a genre produce a 3000-word document by writing only 3,000 words or even 3,500 words.

Please let me know if you have more of these kinds of questions. (Or any other questions.)

[Judith Piccione]

I know I probably sound like such a deadbeat and/or slacker, but I really need some direction. I know I did well with this stuff in my undergraduate education but that was alsmost 4 years ago and it's not something I've kept up with so I'm feeling very lost. I cannot find any of my undergraduate papers and I honestly don't remember where to start in terms of putting a paper like this together. Please give me some direction. Roughly, how many sources are we looking at using here? I have two articles so far (from our class reserves) and the book He, She and It. Also, I cannot sign into Cortland's library. I am trying to find articles, but it's not working because I cannot get into the database. I'm on the verge of a meltdown because I'm feeling the pressure and I'm not being able to proceed.

I really want to look at Shira and Riva's relationship. I wanted to look into the fact that Riva was very masculine (warrior-like, away from the home, girlfriend) and Shira was very feminine (wants to be home, motherly, boyfriend-Yod). I'm struggling with the fact that I'm not sure what this has to do with cyberpunk literature and I suspect this is because I can't get into searching articles, for whatever reason. Please shed some light on my predicament.

[AlexReid]

You've got a number of questions here. Let's start with the easy ones.

1. You should call the Cortland Library regarding your access problems. Reference Desk [phone]/2820 Circulation: [phone]/2527
2. How many sources? I haven't given you a number. Two could be fine, plus the novel itself. Then you might want to draw on some feminist theory given your topic. You might want to look for additional lit. crit. research that deals with feminism and sci fi or cyberpunk.
3. Have you seen the directions I provided for you here on the wiki? I think I've been fairly explicit about recommending a process. Do these directions make sense?
4. I think there is a lot of scholarship on gender in cyberpunk. I guess the questions you'd want to look at are
-how is gender constructed/represented in the novel?
-what does the novel have to say about the relationship between science, technology and gender?
-how is political action gendered in the novel?
-what do the cyborg/golem offer in terms of a post-gendered politics?

I would certainly take another look at Haraway, as her work will be central to research in this area. You might also want to look at the work of Sandy Stone and/or Anne Balsamo.

[Judith Piccione]

Thank you. I finally did get a hold of Cortland and I'm not searching articles. I think I'm getting somewhere. Getting over being sick is not helping my cause any at all. I can hardly think through a full thought, let alone formulate a thesis right this minute. I feel like I'm really getting somewhere with my topic, but I have actually ushered more toward looking at Shira's masculinity with regard to sex as opposed to Yod's "giving" nature (more feminine). I definitely think I will be using the Haraway article.

Thanks for your help.

[Brittany]

Hi Dr. Reid,

I, like Judith, also have some questions about the final paper. I'm trying to put my thoughts together and everything and I know I would definitly like to use the book He, She, and It. Although, I'm not really sure where you want us to go with this? I read the final paper requirements and didn't really see anything on there that pointed me in any certain direction other than that of literary analysis. So should I pick a topic such as feminism, marxism, ect. based on the book? May we only use one book and a number of sources that go along with that book? I would really really really like to explore the relationships throughout the book, for example: between Yod and Shira (as lovers between human and robot), love pertaining to parents and their children (i.e. Riva/Shira-Malkah/Shira-Shira/Ari-Avram/Gadi-Malkah/Yod-Avram/Yod-Chava/Joseph, ect), and then somehow tying that into freedom if possible, or maybe that would be another topic possibility as I see both as being extremely prevalent within the book. What do you think? Possible?

Thanks,
Brittany

[AlexReid]

Brittany, all of those are possibilities. I guess you could say that I've given you enough rope to hang yourself. One of the toughest tasks for any writer is figuring out something purposeful to say. Imagine that you are going to read this paper to a roomful of teachers and/or graduate students who have shown up because they are curious about cyberpunk literature. For example, you are familiar with Scholars' Day here on campus, right? Imagine you are giving a presentation then. People have come to your panel b/c they think it might be interesting.

What would you want to say to them? How would you convince them of your own authority or ethos (i.e. what quotes from the novel and other research would you use)?

To be more specific, I would ask you what you want to say about the relationship between Yod and Shira. I would say that the text explores the psychosexual foundations of eroticism. That is, we typically naturalize sexual behaviors as biological imperatives, but what are we to make of this? Is sex with a cyborg masturbation? There's actually a term for this "teledildonics," essentially computer-controlled dildos. And of course, there's more than sex between Yod and Shira.

I certainly think you can connect an exploration of this issue with that of familial bonds, as familial and psychosexual relations are intertwined (e.g. think of the Oedipal complex). This would be a good place to incorporate Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto.

You might even be able to go so far as to connect this with larger social issues. If you want to argue that the family as a social institution is a cornerstone of larger sociocultural structures, then the reconstruction of familial relations becomes a mechanism for social critique and change. For example, if we argue that Western society is patriarchal and analogous to the bourgeois family structure, then the fatherless cyborg introduces a potentially revolutionary element--Yod can pass for son or husband or father but is not these things. This is certainly part of Haraway's argument.

Good luck with your paper.