About
Jillian Weise is the author of The Amputee's Guide to Sex, the novel The Colony, and The Book of Goodbyes, which won the 2013 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her essays on being a cyborg have appeared in The New York Times, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics and Drunken Boat. She earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati. She has been awarded fellowships/residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Fulbright Program in collaboration with Universidad de Buenos Aires, and the Lannan Foundation. Jillian is an Associate Professor of English.
How their research is transforming health care
The New York Times published Jillian’s essay, "Going Cyborg" in which she identifies as a cyborg. The name "cyborg" functions as description, rebellion and provocation. Cyborg accurately describes her computerized knee while pushing back against common signifiers for disability. Most cyborgs belong to science fiction, feminist theory or bio-politics. While theorists like Donna Haraway use the cyborg metaphor to argue for a politics beyond naturalism and essentialism, the use of cyborg-as-metaphor restricts cyborg identity. The theoretical imperative of scholars like Haraway, Fukuyama and Kaku is meant to be inclusive. Yet in culture and literature, the cyborg remains excluded from the realm of the human. By claiming the identity, she is trying to make room for common cyborgs.
Health Research Expertise Keywords
Faculty Scholar, Affect, Bioethics, Biohacking, Biopolitics, Creative Writing, Cyborg, Disability Studies, Feminist Theory, Hybridity, Medical Ethics, Narrative Theory, Poetry, Prosthetics
