ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the limitations of the “natural” body as a literate construct, and extends Gregory L. Ulmer’s theory of electracy in order to demonstrate new affordances of the body via digital rhetoric. Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes is often confused with the much more common type 2 diabetes, which is a metabolic disorder in which the body becomes more resistant to insulin. Insulin therapy requires constant monitoring and tinkering, which rewrites the body as a location of perpetual revision. One of the most important conversations happening right in the treatment of T1D is that of the “closed-loop” insulin delivery system. The bleeding-edge T1 cyborg currently deploys two prosthetics: the continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and the insulin pump. The CGM learns the body, and the pump subsequently learns how to best make adjustments to insulin basal rates, and administers insulin accordingly, closing the loop.
