A Study On N.Katherine Hayles’s Post-humanism

Post-humanism is a new trend of thought in contemporary Western post-study trend,emboding the reflection of humanism,deconstruction,feminism,and media theory.N.Katherine Hayles,an American post-modern literary critic and post-human theorist from interdisciplinary research,Who constructs an unique post-humanism concept by combining cybernetics,information theory and other scientific theories,and understanding the “Post-humanity” based on literary texts,which deeply influenced the post-humanism related research.This paper is divided into three chapters to explain Hayles’ s post-humanism thought.The first chapter explain the cognitive transformation of Hayles’ s post-human context——from “Presence/Absence” to “Pattern/Randomness”.First of all,Taking Hayles’ s discussion on “Cognitive approach”,and points out the cognitive mode of “Presence/Absence”faces crisis in the post-human context;To cope with this crisis,we first need to deconstruct the traditional metaphysics,Hayles conducted a review and analysis of related researches by Heidegger and Derrida;Then,Hayles discovered that there is still a paradox in the deconstruction of “Metaphysics present ”,That is to say,it has not yet been able to get rid of the fixed “Origin” bondage,confined to the thinking frame of binary opposition;On this basis,Hayles put forward the concept of “Pattern/Randomness”based on cybernetics and information theory,together with “Presence/Absence” as the theoretical discourse of understanding post-human;And combined with specific texts to explain the profound influence of the transition from “Presence/Absence”to“Pattern/Randomness”on contemporary literature;Finally,consider “Pattern/Randomness”as a “Supplement” rather than “Confrontation” for “Presence/Absence”,it shows that the information abstracted by “Pattern/Randomness” cannot get rid of the material entities behind it,which stressing the importance of substance.The second chapter mainly discusses Hayles’ s thinking on the topic of “Body boundary”.First of all,The development of technology has achieved a connection between organisms and machinery,as a result,the boundaries of the body become increasingly blurred;Secondly,by analyzing the novel Limbo,explain that the body connection form moves from “Hyphen”Towards “Splicing”,“Hyphen” implies that the connected parties are both related and independent,and belong to the “human-machine” combination of physical level,“Splicing”means that the two sides are more closely integrated,involving the fusion of organisms and inorganic bodies at the level of the nervous system,Among them,the “Splicing” between humans and machines explores the important role of cyborg in breaking the binary opposition between humans and machines;Subsequently,exploring the boundary dispute is essentially competing for the main position,which is manifested as the conflict between “Internal” and “External”in Dick’s science fiction;Finally,this chapter will discuss how Hayles arrives at the Subject problem step by step through text analysis through discussing solutions to the“Internal” and “External” debate in Science fiction text,and then clarify a towards stable and reconciliatory human-machine relationship.The third chapter discusses Hayles’ s theoretical contribution to post-humanism.First,reviewing Hayles’ s comparison of artificial life evolution theory with traditional biological evolution theory,Pointing out the drawbacks of artificial life completely out of the body to talk about post-human;Secondly,discussing the interaction between “Body/Embodiment”and “Inscription/Incorporation” proposed by Hayles.Hayles first put forward the “Embodiment” to counter the universal “Body” concept,reveal the long-term suppression of “Body” to “Embodiment”,emphasizing that the concept of “Embodiment” should be incorporated into the understanding of “Body”;Next,she puts forward the concepts of “Inscription” and “Incorporation”for examine the relationship between “Body” and “Embodiment”,finally,she take The Ticket That Exploded as an example to explore how information technology changes the relationship between voice and body,and locating the change of the relationship in the interaction of “Body/Embodiment” and “Inscription/Incorporation”,which signals the emergence of post-human;Finally,This chapter will focus on Hayles’ s interpretation of four science fiction novels in the symbol matrix,exploring how Hayles’ s “Inscription/Incorporation” as the future of post-human holds up.