1media/Dolly diagram.jpeg2023-03-31T11:48:57-07:00Her Background & 'Birth'17Dollyplain2023-04-10T13:13:01-07:00Dolly the Sheep presents a unique opportunity in regards to hybridity. Braidotti describes her as an “icon of posthuman condition” (74) as she is neither completely animal nor completely machine. For some context, she was created through artificial means. Scientists used the DNA extracted from a ewe's somatic cell to make a complete embryo. They took out the cell's nucleus and planted it into the unfertilized egg of a different sheep and shocked it with electricity to literally jumpstart the cell's dividing. From there that little viable egg was inseminated into a surrogate ewe, and after some trial and error, Dolly was created (Campbell 97). She was the first mammal to ever be cloned, and like her own creation, her presence shocked the world when she entered the public eye at only 6 months old in February 1997 (García 2015). Her very existence begs the question, is she truly living if she was never truly born? Is the matter of birth what creates our understandings of what si living and therefore what can die? This is one of the places where Dolly and Can't Help Myself intersect because of how they ask us to re-evaluate these kinds of terms.
