Vampires, Cyborgs and Disguises: Politics of the Theatrical

Abstract

Feminism(s) have had to reevaluate all-encompassing theories about ‘women’ and their ‘oppression’ in ‘patriarchy’. Owing to the totalising claims of the ‘information society’ over all aspects of lived social relations, finding discursive spaces from which to argue oppositional politics is nearly impossible. Joanna Russ seeks precisely such discursive spaces in her fiction and, like a number of feminist critics, has articulated feminist political positions which is not exclusively reliant on the integrity and homogeneity of the category woman. One such critic is Donna Haraway, who tackles the cyborg myth in her 1985 essay ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’. In the same manner, Russ uses the image of vampires and ghosts to destabilise the body and gender identities. Like the cyborgs of more recent science fiction, vampires and ghosts function as impersonators of ironic images of sexed and gendered humanness in her fiction. This chapter examines how Russ employs the generic conventions of science fiction and fantasy to explore the concept of the ‘natural’, ‘original’ human body in her fiction, including The Female Man, On Strike Against God, and Extra(Ordinary) People.