In Prosthetic Memories, Hyaesin Yoon examines the entanglements of humans, animals, and technologies across South Korea and the United States at the turn of the twenty-first century. Interrogating a variety of body-technology interfaces, Yoon outlines an emergent mode of prosthetic memory in which human memory is extended into both machines and animals. Prosthetic memory overflows and provides an alternative to familiar human perception, Western scientific reason, and other senses of knowledge in ways that can foster networks of solidarity, care, and empathy between human and nonhuman subjects. Among other sites and subjects, Yoon examines tongue surgery to correct English pronunciation in Korea, Asian American poetry that engages the human-machine divide, transnational dog cloning, and stem cell research, each of which activates potent postcolonial feminist mnemonics and alliances. In so doing, Yoon narrates the countermemories of racialized, gendered, diasporic, queer, and marginalized human and nonhuman others that work against the violent and isolating biopolitical and neoliberal forces in contemporary society.
Hyaesin Yoon is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University.
Note to Readers vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part I. Mouth to Mouth 31 1. A Cut in the Tongue 37 2. A Song from the Cybernetic Fold 57 Part II. The Specters of Cloning 75 3. "Best Friends Again" 81 4. Disappearing Bitches 101 5. The Chains of Substitution 121 Epilogue 145 Notes 149 Bibliography 193 Index 211
"In this cutting-edge book, Hyaesin Yoon presents decisively new material, analyses, and theoretical contributions to the field of feminist science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and posthuman studies in outstanding ways. She investigates multilayered aspects of the ways in which bodies and body parts of colonized subjects and animals are instrumentalized as part of transnational capitalist and biopolitical exchange circuits, thereby outlining how bodies can work as mnemonics for new feminist, antiracist, and decolonial politics." - Nina Lykke, author of (Vibrant Death: A Posthuman Phenomenology of Mourning) "Hyaesin Yoon's Prosthetic Memories is required reading for anyone attempting to make sense of how visions of the body, language, species, and time are transforming alongside contemporary information and genetic technologies in locations ranging from cloning labs to call centers. Rightly questioning the racial and gendered assumptions that accompany conventional criticism and praise of modern technology, Yoon's brilliant engagement with feminist ethics and posthumanist theories illuminates new paths forward for understanding transnational power relationships when we breach conventional boundaries between human, animal, and machine." - Neel Ahuja, author of (Planetary Specters: Race, Migration, and Climate Change in the Twenty-First Century)
