I think it’s crucial to think deeply about these topics at this moment in history. Eugenics movements never went away, but they also seem to be on the rise—between RFK Jr.’s health “policy” to rationalist transhumanism, eugenics is deeply embedded in a significant subset of our techno-culture. I spent some time here talking about the difference between transhumanism—a barely concealed form of techno-eugenics—and crip technoscience, an emancipatory tech movement created and led by people with disabilities.

It’s life-or-death for many people that we understand the difference.

To help me illustrate some of these themes, I interviewed Sarah Friend, an artist and software developer who lives with type 1 diabetes. Sarah uses open source software designed by members of the diabetes community to monitor her blood sugar and deliver insulin, and she generously breaks down the reality of needing to be a cyborg as someone who depends on technology for her wellness and survival.

Sources

Adler-Bolton, Beatrice and Vierkant, Artie. Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto. Penguin Random House, 2022.

Cuboniks, Laboria. “The Xenofeminist Manifesto.” A Politics for Alienation, Verso, 2018.

Haraway, Donna. Chapter 4: A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century.

Hamraie, Aimi, and Kelly Fritsch. “Crip Technoscience Manifesto.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, vol. 5, no. 1, Apr. 2019, pp. 1–33. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v5i1.29607.

Hester, Helen. “What Is Xenofeminism?” Xenofeminism, Polity Press, 2018.

Kafer, Alison. “Introduction.” Feminist, Queer, Crip, Indiana University Press, 2013, pp. 1–24, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gz79x.5. JSTOR.

---. “The Cyborg and the Crip.” Feminist, Queer, Crip, Indiana University Press, 2013, pp. 103–28, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gz79x.10. JSTOR.

Malapi-Nelson, Alcibiades. “Cybernetics: The Beginnings, the Founding Articles and the First Meetings.” The Nature of the Machine and the Collapse of Cybernetics, Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 5–45.

Pickering, Andrew. “Cybernetics and the Mangle: Ashby, Beer and Pask.” Social Studies of Science, vol. 32, no. 3, June 2002, pp. 413–37. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312702032003003.

Powell, Christopher. “Radical Complexity: Using Concepts From Complex Systems Theory to Think About Socialist Transformation.” Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, 2023.

Russell, Marta. "Disablement, Oppression, and the Political Economy." Journal of Disability Policy Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 2001, pp. 87.

Spurgas, Alyson K. “Introduction.” Decolonize Self-Care. OR Books, 2023.

Taylor, Sunny. "The Right Not to Work: Power and Disability." Monthly Review, vol. 55, no. 10, Mar., 2004, pp. 30-44.

For this episode on menopause, I interviewed:

* My best friend Charlie about how they’re starting to think about menopause as someone who’s trans non-binary. As millennials start to experience perimenopause over the next few years, we’re going to see an explosion of trans non-binary menopause experiences—which, I argue (with Judith Butler, of course!), is a sort of hyperreality that can be quite liberatory.

* My friend Kim, who went through perimenopause during the pandemic and still can’t stop seeing Facebook/Instagram ads for products that can “fix” it. Gen X women like Kim are some of the first to experience menopause within the neoliberal, algorithmic swamp we’re in, and it was super fun talking to her about her experiences.

* My mother, who’s considered a “superflasher”—someone whose hot flashes never ended!—about the pitfalls of experiencing menopause without access to social media narratives. I get into some deep French-Canadian, biopolitical, intergenerational trauma with this one.

If you liked this podcast, please let me know! I want to do more, exploring where cultural theory, political economy, and health humanities intersect.