ABSTRACT
The proliferation of the cyborg and the posthuman represents a fundamental shift in the materiality of the human subject, a shift that requires similar reconsiderations in how subjectivity may be constructed beyond organic embodiment. Major Motoko Kusanagi, the protagonist of the Ghost in the Shell series who has the ability to change her body as circumstances require, offers a unique opportunity to critically interrogate questions of identity vis-à-vis posthumanism and transhumanism, suggesting that in spite of the seemingly limitless possibilities open to corporeal plasticity, the body is a product, in part, of continuous citation and reiteration. Through the use of distinctive visual signifiers to mark a particular body as a reiteration of her self and despite the fact that she can change bodies, Kusanagi reforms the body and allows for a continuity of the subject that is derived the agency of the embodied self.
