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How We Became Posthuman

Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics

N. Katherine Hayles

 

1999

350 pages

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N. Katherine Hayles (Writing Machines)

Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin

Keywords

Media Theory

 

 

 

Hayles stipulates her view of the Posthuman subject in this often-quoted passage:

If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality; that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of the human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival. (How We Became Posthuman 5)