Donna Haraway on Cyborgs, “Oddkin” & Resisting the Monoculture of the Mind [Episode Cut]

Synopsis:  Together, Laura and Donna consider expansive questions: how do we understand ourselves in an age of artificial intelligence? And how do we resist the pull of authoritarian “mono-thought” — the demand for certainty, sameness, and simple answers in a complex world? 

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Description: “Thinking requires action and passion,” says feminist philosopher and scholar, Donna Haraway in this unique conversation. In her 1985 essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” and 2003 work, “The Companion Species Manifesto”, Haraway challenged patriarchal, capitalist, binary, species-ist ways of looking at the world. It’s no surprise that people are looking to her work again now. Generative thinking, she tells Laura, requires “taking the risk to try a new pattern; to invent something that may very well fall apart in your collective hands but leaves threads to be picked up again.” In this episode, Haraway and Flanders sit down for an expansive conversation about what it means to be human in an age of AI and resisting what she calls authoritarian “mono-thought.” Plus, a commentary from Laura on staying in the present and “staying with the trouble.”

“An individual is embedded deeply in worlds with other people, with other organisms, with living and non-living parts of the world. To be a self is to come to a thicker appreciation and accountability for the way we're embedded in the world and act in the world. That's what I mean by being a proper self.” - Donna Haraway

Guest:  Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California Santa Cruz, History of Consciousness Department; Author, A Cyborg Manifesto, When Species Meet, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene

Watch the episode released on YouTube; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode cut airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast January 21st, 2026.

Full Episode Notes are located HERE.

Music Credit: Opolopo's 'No More Lies remix' of “We Rise” by Groove Junkies, Opolopo and Solara courtesy of More House Music;  'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper'

Additional Credits:  Audio Clip- Donna Haraway lecturing at the Next Nature Museum for Friday Next, organized in collaboration with the Premium Erasmium Foundation, and recorded by Emily Cohen Ibañez

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*Recommended book:

“The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness” by Donna Haraway: *Get the book

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Related Articles and Resources:

•  Donna Haraway:  Story Telling for Earthly Survival by Fabrizo Terranova - Watch

•  Making Oddkin:  Story Telling for Earthly Survival lecture at Yale - Watch

•  You Are Cyborg by Hair Kunzru, February 1, 1997, WIRED

•  Donna Haraway, Erasmus laureate 2025 at the Next Nature Museum, November 21, 2025, by Next Nature

•  Rethinking Humanity with Donna Haraway:  A Cyborg Manifesto for the AI Age, August 18, 2025, Philosopheasy

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