Abstract

The Frankenstein nature of Chernobyl's nuclear reactor is the author's main venture into contemporary technology. Kaufman-Osborn (political theory, Whitman College) symbolically explores the relationship between human beings and their creations, and how gender informs that relationship. From the title, some may expect this to be a feminist analysis. In a sense it is, elaborating upon Judith Butler's ideas in Gender Trouble that gender is imposed by norm-governed dualisms of "performativity" (what Kaufman-Osborn terms "the gender-specific forms of divided labor"). The author waxes eloquently on artifacts as agents, agents as artifacts, exemplary artifacts (shield, cyborg, and reactor), and the myths of Prometheus and Philomela' loom. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.