Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 09:30:12 -0500 (EST)
From: "Cyberdiva (a.k.a \"Radhika Gajjala\")" <rxgst6+-AT-pitt.edu>
Subject: Sexuality and Cyberspace - just released.


I have been reading the proof-copy for this issue and recommend that
anyone interested in issues related to feminism and cyber"space" should
read it.



(relevant to issues of philosophy/psychology/cultural/feminist studies
vis-a-vis 
cyber-space).

For another $5, you can get a copy of Mia Lipner's tape.

thanks,
Radhika


>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         WOMEN & PERFORMANCE, A JOURNAL OF FEMINIST THEORY
>
>        and New York University's Department of Performance Studies
>
>                        present issue 17:
>
>            "SEXUALITY AND CYBERSPACE: Performing the Digital Body"
>
>                    press date: Feb 1, 1997
>
>There has been a great deal of hype about how online life encourages us to
>separate our minds from our bodily constraints. This issue of Women &
>Performance reverses the question, and asks: "How much of your physical
>self do you bring with you, online? How do your offline ethics affect your
>online judgements? When you log on to the Net, where does your body go?"
>
>Freud once called femininity the Dark Continent of human sexuality. Has
>sexuality become the Dark Continent of cyberspace?  "Sexuality &
>Cyberspace" deploys creative uses of feminist, queer, postcolonial and
>performance theories, in order to explore the world of the internet and
>on-line computerized communications.
>
>        Guest Editors: Stacy Horn, President Echo Communications
>                       and Theresa Senft, W&P Editorial Board.
>______________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>The entire issue, complete with "Feminist Yellow Pages of Cyberspace" is
>also downloadable, free of charge (educational purposes only, please) at
>our  Women & Performance web site:
>
>                http://www.echonyc.com/~women
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>price per issue: $7 U.S. ( plus shipping outside of U.S.)
>
>subscription rate: 2 issues/year -AT- $14 U.S. (plus shipping outside of U.S.)
>
>FOR INFORMATION/TO PLACE AN ORDER, PLEASE EMAIL:
>
>women-AT-echonyc.com
>
>or write to:
>Women & Performance
>Department of Performance Studies, New York University
>721 Broadway, 6th Floor
>New York, NY 10003
>
>*Our thanks to the following sponsors: Echo Communications, The WELL,
>FilmMaker Magazine, LPC Books, Duke University Press, NYU Bookstore,
>Lusitania Press, and the New York State Council for the Arts New Media
>division.
>______________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>                        TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR
>
>        "SEXUALITY AND CYBERSPACE: PERFORMING THE DIGITAL BODY"
>
>                EDITORS:  THERESA SENFT  and STACY HORN
>
>
>INTRODUCTION: PERFORMING THE DIGITAL BODY--A GHOST STORY BY THERESA SENFT
>What do cyborgs, prosthetic feminism and online culture all share in comon?
>The author introduces the notion of l'ecriture digital, and contemplates
>the next wave of contemporary sexual politics, both online, and off it.
>
>CHANGING THE SUBJECT BY JODI O'BRIEN
>Are there truly, as some advocates claim, "No closets in cyberspace", or
>are new ones forming as we speak? O'Brien poses the question: Just how
>elastic is the institution of gender, and how can concerned onliners change
>the assumed Subject of cyberspace?
>
>WHEN SNOW ISN'T WHITE BY BARBARA BROWNING
>The cytborg is comprised of the biological infected with the mechanical,
>East infected with the West, male infected with female. In all this
>infection, do cyborgs worry about sexually transmitted diseases? Can they
>get AIDS?The author of Samba: Resistance in Motion, writes about
>prostheses, feminism, contagion and cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash.
>
>MODEM BUTTERFLY, RECONSIDERED BY  THERESA M. SENFT and KALEY DAVIS
>Written as a series of letters between a transgendered woman, Kaley Davis,
>and a biological woman, Theresa Senft, this story charts Davis's entry into
>WIT, and women-only space on Echo, a Manhattan BBS.  Acknowledging the
>struggle of the women of Echo to define  "woman" in digital space, the
>authors ask: What does biology have to do with the search of marginalized
>people for private forums, online?  How is the physical body, with racial
>and sexual markings, re-written into cyberspace, and why?
>
>ON SPACE, SEX AND STALKERS BY PAMELA GILBERT
>Pamela Gilbert, an academic at a midwestern university, woke one morning to
>find nude modeling photos of herself being traded on Usenet. This is a
>meditation on the politics of harassment, cyber-style.
>
>HEARING THE NET:  MIA LIPNER, INTERVIEWED BY CATHY YOUNG and THERESA M. SENFT
>Young and Senft interview Mia Lipner, a blind communications theorist,
>about the experience of "hearing the internet".  Lipner's sound art piece,
>Requiem Digitatem--a true story of trust, suicide, and death on the net,
>narrated by both Lipner and her computerized text reader-- is available on
>audio tape for our subscribers at an additional cost of $5 US
>
>METRO ON ICE MEETS BALL AND CHEANG BY MOCHA JEAN HERRUP
> Mocha Jean Herrup describes her private seduction/confusion/ordeal as she
>helps lesbian multimedia artist (and frequent participator in the Whitney
>Biennial) Shu Lea Cheang with her CyberBowling installation, done in
>conjunction with The Walker Arts Center (Minnesota).
>
>CHATT(ER)ING THROUGH THE FINGERTIPS BY YVETTE COLON,  MSW
>What is it like to run group therapy over a modem? Which techniques or
>substitutions are made online for the visual cues that usually tell a
>therapist her patient is lying, or upset? Yvette Colon, a licensed clinical
>social worker, discusses her experiences running  "group" online
>
>THROES OF ADDICTION BY ALAN SONDHEIM
> ere is an all-too familiar tale: the story of an online junkie, sitting in
>a coffee shop, at once aware of his body and oblivious to everything but
>his addiction.  He sits, drinking coffee, plugged into his notebook, which
>is by all accounts a prosthetic device without which he ceases to exist.
>
>MY WOMB, THE MOSH PIT BY SHARON LEHNER  The author, who aborted an 18 week
>fetus, struggles to understand the reality portrayed by a sonogram image,
>versus the cyberspace notion of "life on a screen".
>
>PHONE SEX IS COOL: SUPERCONDUCTORS AS CHAT LINES BY MARCUS BOON
>Boon details the routing mechanisms by which computers handle incoming
>phone transmissions on a phone sex chat line.  Unpacking the components of
>the "silicon regime", the author writes an ethnography of
>machine-sexuality, one which collapses the boundaries of contemporary
>private and corporate space
>
>TURING, MY LOVE BY MATTHEW EHRLICH
>"Can you think what I feel?  Can you feel what I think?" Alan Turing (the
>inventor of Artificial Intelligence) asked his young lover Arnold in 1951.
>Matthew Ehrlich's experimental love letter repeats Turing's questions, and
>casts cyberdoubt over "real" sex .
>
>
>NEW JACKED CITY? WIRING THE SOUTH BRONX BY EMILY POLER
>A New York City health care planner explains the racism and sexism of
>Senator Exon's Brave New Wired World scenarios, while suggesting that
>proponents of poor urban internet access can stand to learn a great deal
>from the lessons of public health care workers
>
>INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE NET BY PATTI WHALEY
>How might the Net be better be utilized to help human rights organizations
>reach more constituents? The author focuses especially on the Beijing
>International Women's Conference for many of her examples.
>
>
>THE "SPACE" OF CYBERSPACE BY HARRY M. CLEAVER
>Economist  Harry Cleaver discusses the uses and abuses of Laura Miller's
>"frontier" metaphor in her essay "Women and Children First: Gender and the
>Settling of the Electronic Frontier." .Cleaver suggests that frontiers are
>useful precisely because they engender resistance, and offers the Chiapas
>Mailing list as an example of 'indigineous resistance' within both online
>and offline culture.
>
>WHEN THE PERSONAL IS DIGITAL BY HOLLY WILLIS and MIKKI HALPIN
>What are the differences between lesbian cinema and queer interactive art?
>Willis and Halpin, co-curatorsof the interactive media component of the New
>York City Mix queer film festival,  discuss ways to mark queer space in
>cyberspace.
>
>
>A KINDER, GENTLER GLOSSARY FOR NET NEOPHYTES  BY CATHY YOUNG
>
>A FEMINIST YELLOW PAGES OF CYBERSPACE
>
>ORIGINAL ARTWORK BY JACK TAYLOR, MARIANNE PETIT  and TINA LAPORTA
>
>BOOK DESIGN BY MARY O'SHAUGNESSY
>
>WEB DESIGN BY JACK TAYLOR and MORGAN NOEL
>
>DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING: C.D. THOMAS
>
>
>                                ###
>
>
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>