Donna Haraway's Cyborg Touching (Up/On) Luce Irigaray's Ethics and the Interval Between: Poethics as Embodied Writing

In this article, I argue that Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg needs to be reassessed and extricated from the many misunderstandings that surround it. First, I suggest that we consider her cyborg as an ethical concept. I propose that her cyborg can be productively placed within the ethical framework developed by Luce Irigaray, especially in relationship to her concept of the “interval between.” Second, I consider how Haraway's “cyborg writing” can be understood as embodied ethical writing, that is, as a contemporary écriture feminine. I believe that this cyborgian “writing the body” offers us a way of both creating and understanding texts that think through ethics, bodies, aesthetics, and politics together as part of a vital and relevant contemporary feminist ethics of embodiment. I employ the term “poethics” as a useful way to describe such a practice.     

THE PERCEIVED VALUE OF FRINGE BENEFITS

One hundred eighty-two University of Arizona employees each participated in one of two field studies of the valuation of fringe benefits. Findings included: (a) a lack of employee knowledge regarding employer cost and market value of the studied benefit, and (b) significant undervaluation of the benefit by employees. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that employee benefit valuations anchor on employee contributions. Implications for practitioners and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Feminism,Ethics, and the Question of Theory

Feminist discussions of ethics in the Western philosophical tradition range from critiques of the substance of dominant moral theories to critiques of the very practice of “doing ethics” itself. I argue that these critiques really target a certain historically specific model of ethics and moral theory—a “theoretical-juridical” one. 1 outline an “expressive'Collaborative” conception of morality and ethics that could be a politically self-conscious and reflexively critical alternative.     

Identifying the Needs of Newly Unemployed Workers

Those responsible for providing services to the newly unemployed face the need to make choices relative to the allocation of scarce resources. Making these choices requires data on the perceived needs of those to be served. A sample of newly umemployed workers responded to a questionnaire indicating their needs for information and community services.     

Morality in Practice: A Response to Claudia Card and Lorraine Code

I briefly reprise a few themes of my book Moral Understandings in order to address some questions about responsibility and justification. I argue for a thoroughly situated and naturalized view of moral justification that warns us not to take moral universalism too easily at face value. I also argue for the significance of reports of experience, among other kinds of empirical evidence, in testing the habitability of moral forms of life.     

Married Black men's observations of fathers' teachings about husbandhood

It is important to investigate the ways in which sons learn about marriage from men, including biological fathers, male relatives, and social fathers. This study's purpose is to explore Black sons' observations of fathers' teachings about husbandhood. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 52 married Black men who participated in the Pathways to Marriage project in 2010. Findings highlighted developmental pathways and family processes related to modeling husbandhood, demonstrating trust and commitment, managing conflict, protecting and providing, displaying teamwork and partnership, showing love and affection, and imparting beliefs and values. Implications and recommendations for future studies are also discussed.     

TRUTH TELLING AS REPARATIONS

Abstract: International instruments now defend a “right to the truth” for victims of political repression and violence and include truth telling about human rights violations as a kind of reparation as well as a form of redress. While truth telling about violations is obviously a condition of redress or repair for violations, it may not be clear how truth telling itself is a kind of reparations. By showing that concerted truth telling can satisfy four features of suitable reparations vehicles, I defend the idea that politically implemented modes of truth telling to, for, and by those who are victims of gross violation and injustice may with good reason be counted as a kind of reparations. Understanding the doubly symbolic character of reparations, however, makes clearer why truth telling is unlikely to be sufficient reparation for serious wrongs and is likely to be sensitive to the larger context of reparative activity and its social, political, and historical background.