Cyberculture Studies

Please consider any one or combination of the following questions, utilizing your readings for this week (as well as any others that we’ve discussed that may also be applicable):

1. What challenges do these (and other previously read) scholars pose to the postmodern notion that cyberspace enables flight from all of the physical limits and boundaries of the body?
2. After considering your readings, do you believe that it is possible to leave one’s body behind when entering cyberspace? Why or why not? What effective arguments do the authors make to support your conclusion?
3. In both readings, the words “identity,” “embodiment,” “subjectivity,” and “gender” are frequently utilized. Discuss your understanding of each of these terms and support your understanding of each term by engaging one or more of our assigned texts.
4. Looking over the last several readings, describe your understanding of how the theoretical concept of subjectivity has evolved over the past 100 or so years. Are we potentially entering a new era of both the experience and understanding of subjectivity? Why or why not?
5. In what ways is both online and real life identity described as a cyclical movement? How does each impact and/or inform the other in this described cycle?
6. According to the authors, how do our genders inform our online identities? How might gender reflect our cyberspace identity role choices?
7. At one point, one of the authors describes the body as an “absent signifier.” Explain this concept in your own words and provide a (real or fictional) example.
8. In what ways might online experiences of “other” identities translate into real life experiences, according to the authors?
9. According to the authors, does the postmodern subject have an essential core (gendered) identity? Why or why not? In what way might the subject (with or without an essential core gendered identity) inform or reflect our internet personae?
10. In what ways might our real life bodies and/or subjectivities be complicated by our online bodies and/or subjectivities (or lack thereof)?

NOTE: Be sure to reference one or more of the authors, our discussions, and/or other readings to help support your thoughts and conclusions. While personal experience is certainly useful and can serve as an example, do not rely solely on personal experience to support your point/s.