Simon Lee Approximately 150 Words
Shl5@geneseo.edu
Scientific Writing 105-19
Haraway on The Greek Tree
By Simon Lee
In ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’, Dona Haraway states that the boundary between man and nature has been thoroughly breached. Haraway asserts “… many people no longer feel the need for separation [of Humans and Nature]”(Haraway 293). Haraway is trying to say that as time goes on the boundary that separated man from nature is slowly disappearing and that this is not a bad thing. Haraway would feel that The Greek Tree is a perfect representation of this unity between man and nature. She would say that because the students have painted the tree and made it a landmark of Geneseo, they have protected it from any future harm that may come to it. Haraway would believe that the distinction between man and nature is hard to see and that this is one step closer for us to realize that we are cyborgs in this world.
Hi Simon, Thanks for these neat thoughts about the Greek Tree! I’m really interested in this idea that students have protected the tree from future harm by painting on it. This is intriguing and I think it’s really your idea, not Haraway’s. I think Haraway’s idea about the erasure of the boundary between human and nature will definitely be helpful to you in conceiving of the tree as a sort of hybrid object in which we can witness the mixing of the two (I’d like to see you discuss this mixture in much more specific terms—what makes it up, exactly? what human elements and what natural elements can we see in the tree?). Or are you thinking of something even more complicated, as your final sentence seems to suggest—does the Tree ultimately reveal not only its own hybrid nature but also the hybrid nature of the humans who have painted on it? Are you thinking of the tree as helping to comprise a sort of cyborg identity for those who use it? If so, how? And finally, getting back to your idea of “protection,” how exactly do you see the tree being protected, and what does this “futurity” mean for the tree’s identity and the identity of the humans implicated in it? It could be useful to scour the Haraway for her ideas about futurity, esp. with reference to the cyborg. One suggestion: I’d avoid thinking of the human-tree relationship as a “unity”—as Haraway says, the cyborg is about parts and fragments and assemblages, not wholes and unities. Thanks for this!