[ book tip by Translated Tips ] Reading Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto (first published in 1985) was instrumental in helping me find my intellectual bearings. In this essay science fiction is elaborately interwoven with reflections on cultural and gender theory, and this was what first inspired me to take a closer look at both science fiction and the history of science. The book How Like a Leaf gives, on the one hand, insight into the conditions under which this text and others by Haraway originated. Yet it is also interesting as a text because Haraway's theoretical considerations are tightly spun with biographical accounts and experiences, and so fulfil one of the important demands of feminist science criticism: to recognize the personal as an element of scientific discovery. Nevertheless, this biographical interview is not so naïve as to see personal experience as something that occurs beyond the reaches of culture, but as something that is imbued with what is social and cultural categorizations. I would like to see more such documents: documents which report on thought-provoking situations and career paths, on the implications of intellectual life, misunderstandings, trains of thought, and the necessity of having two places of residence.

[ book info ] Haraway, Donna J.: How Like a Leaf. An Interview with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. Routledge, New York, London 2002 .