Writing//Posthuman: The Literary Text as Cognitive Assemblage

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art ›› 2018, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (3): 6-21.

• Issue in Focus: Posthumanism and the Future of Literary Theory Studies • Next Articles

Writing//Posthuman: The Literary Text as Cognitive Assemblage

N. Katherine Hayles

Duke University

Online:2018-05-25 Published:2018-10-19
About author:N. Katherine Hayles, the James B. Duke Professor of Literature at Duke University, teaches and writes on the relations of literature, science and technology in the 20th and 21th centuries.

Abstract

Abstract: Posthuman studies have developed in many different directions, which may be charted according to the role they assign to computational technologies. Arguing that computational media have been highly influential in the spread of posthumanism and its conceptualizations, this essay illustrates the importance of digital technologies for writing in the contemporary era. Humans and computational media participate in hybrid interactions through cognitive assemblages, networks through which information, interpretations and meanings circulate. Illustrating these interactions are analyses of two works of electronic literature, Sea and Spar Between by Nick Montford and Stephanie Strickland, and Evolution by Johannes Heldén and Hakan Jonson.

Key words: posthuman, writing, electronic literature, cognitive assemblages

N. Katherine Hayles . Writing//Posthuman: The Literary Text as Cognitive Assemblage[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2018, 38(3): 6-21.

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Writing//Posthuman: The Literary Text as Cognitive Assemblage

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