Shoshana Magnet

Women's and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Shoshana Magnet is a feminist science and technology studies scholar whose research sits at the intersection of gender, race, sexuality, and emerging biotechnologies. Her most-cited work, "Robots and Insects: Gender, Sexuality, and Engagement in 'Mixed Societies' of Cockroaches and Robots" (2013), critically examines how biomimetic robot-insects challenge and reinforce assumptions about species, gender, and sexuality. In this provocative piece, Magnet asks what it means to be an insect or a robot, and whether these categories can be transformed through cross-species engagement. Her follow-up, "Military buzz: race, robots and insects" (2021), extends this analysis to the military-industrial complex, exposing how biomimetic technologies are racialized and weaponized under the guise of evolutionary efficiency. Though her citation counts are modest—4 and 3 respectively—Magnet’s work punches above its weight in interdisciplinary impact, bridging feminist theory, animal studies, and critical robotics. She is a key voice in questioning the ethical and political dimensions of human-animal-machine boundaries, making her essential reading for scholars in feminist technoscience, posthumanism, and critical disability studies.