Reading Comprehension

PT115 · S1 · P3 · Q13 Haraway’s Primate Visions

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Donna Haraway’s Primate Visions is the most ambitious book on the history of science yet written from a feminist perspective, embracing not only the scientific construction of gender but also the interplay of race, class, and colonial and postcolonial culture with the “Western” construction of the very concept of nature itself.

Topic

Donna Haraway’s reimagining of the history of science, gender, and nature through primatology and feminist theory.

Framework

Highlight Noteworthy + Challenge Position

Main Point

Haraway’s Primate Visions radically rethinks the history of science by rejecting traditional, unified narratives and challenging the separation between scientist and subject as well as between science and culture; instead, she argues for a fragmented, multiperspective view that includes cultural forces and nonhuman actors as shapers of knowledge. ()

P1: Introducing Haraway’s Book and its Ambition

Haraway’s Primate Visions is described as a bold, feminist history of science that doesn’t just look at gender, but also brings in race, class, and culture to show how Western views of nature have been shaped. Primatology is chosen as her entry point, since our closeness to primates invites scientists to project human societal beliefs onto them.

P2: Haraway’s Theoretical Challenge to Science

Haraway directly questions the usual idea that scientists are completely separate from the subjects they study. She says seeing nature as something apart from and controlled by people is outdated and problematic. Instead, she thinks both human and nonhuman agents (like primates themselves) help build what we know—and that instead of a single truth, we have many, interconnected partial truths.

P3: Haraway’s Unconventional Writing and Historical Approach

This different way of thinking is matched by her nonlinear, fragmented writing style. Rather than tying everything into one grand narrative about primatology, Haraway keeps separate voices distinct, refusing to force them into a "master story." This patchwork method is rare among historians of science.

13.

The passage is primarily concerned with discussing which one of the following?

  1. the roles played by gender

    Wrong Emphasis: no book mentioned

    The primary concern of this passage is Haraway's book, which this answer is failing to even mention. This answer sounds more like an answer to the question of, "Haraway's book is primarily concerned with what?"

    8% picked this

  2. two different methods of writing

    Wrong Emphasis: need more Haraway

    This is off-putting because it still doesn't say "It's about Haraway's book", but we could maybe consider it, since the author's description of the book involves Haraway's unique method of thinking about science. But this answer makes it seem like the passage was relatively evenly divided between two different methods: Haraway's and .... the traditional method? Although the author is constantly telling us how Haraway is different and special (allowing us to infer traits that are presumably not applicable to the traditional method), the passage spends almost no time ever directly talking about the traditional method of writing the history of science. So we can't put it on center stage, giving it equal billing to Haraway's methods.

    6% picked this

  3. Correct

    the content and style of

    Why this is right

    Finally, we have an answer saying "the passage is about a book!" Obnoxiously, they're alluding to the book in weird code language -- a proposal to reform the scientific approach to nature. Can we make that language work? Was Haraway's book proposing to reform the scientific approach to nature? Well, the 2nd paragraph tells us she is challenging the traditional disjunction between the active knower and the passive object. She argues that this traditional approach to nature is "based on troublingly masculinist and colonialist views of nature" and "she argues that it is a view that is no longer politically / ecologically / scientifically viable", and then "She proposes an (alternative) approach." Okay, so we can accept "proposal to reform the scientific approach to nature" as a phrase that means "Haraway's book". Did the passage primarily concern itself with the content and style of Haraway's book? Sure. Every paragraph is about content, style, or both.

    Skill tested: Primary Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    59% picked this

  4. the theoretical bases and the

    Unsupported: history of scientific women

    This isn't a book on the history of women in science. It's a book on the history of science, but written from a feminist perspective.

    20% picked this

  5. the effect of theoretical positions

    Wrong Emphasis: not about H's book

    The primary concern of this passage is Haraway's book, which this answer is failing to mention. This answer talks about books on the history of science, in general, but this answer doesn't communicate that this passage was written about one specific book on the history of science.

    7% picked this

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