2024 : 10 : 22

Sara Saei ِDibavar

Academic rank: Assistant Professor
ORCID:
Education: PhD.
ScopusId:
HIndex:
Faculty: Department of literature
Address: University of Mazandaran
Phone: 01135302695

Research

Title
Autism and Post-Human: A Cyborgian Reading of Sabina Berman’s Me Who Dove into the Heart of the World
Type
JournalPaper
Keywords
Dualism; Cyborg; Autism Becoming; Posthuman
Year
2024
Journal Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
DOI
Researchers Sara Saei ِDibavar ، Alireza Neyestani

Abstract

The concept of “cyborg” in Donna Haraway’s much-discussed “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985) is outstanding in its depiction of the hybrid body that is untouched by long-standing polar dichotomy stemming from a hierarchal mode of thinking founded on prehistoric anthropocentricism: a worldview embedded mostly in western cultures which considers (normal1) human beings to be superior to nature and has often resulted in victimization of the so-called other. Haraway’s cyborg is capable of “becoming” animal or machine and is, hence, better suited to the Posthuman world. Following in Haraway’s footsteps, we intend to discuss that autistic people – labeled/ stigmatized as intellectually disabled – are able bodies that share close affinities with animals, robots, nature, and environment. To this purpose, Sabina Berman’s debut novel Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World (2012)2 is examined to help us draw an analogy between a cyborg figure and an autistic body to bring to light the necessity of inclusion of all as prescribed by Posthumanism.