“She was born a thing”: Disability, the Cyborg and the Posthuman in Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang

This essay demonstrates the transformative effect of adding disability studies to the array of critical lenses that have been focused on Anne McCaffrey’s “The Ship Who Sang” (1961, 1969 as novel). A touchstone in theoretical work on cyborgs and the posthuman, as well as a key text for science fiction scholars, McCaffrey’s story has generally been viewed as a vision of cyborg possibility. In contrast, I demonstrate the ways in which the narrative relies upon and reinforces a range of ableist ideologies. I highlight a series of previously unexplored tensions within the narrative, arguing that McCaffrey’s bold attempt to depict a race of disabled superbeings is undermined by the strategies of containment she adopts.