Posthuman analysis essay

Much scholarship has explicitly and extensively addressed different aspects of posthumanism in recent times; indeed, as Bruce Clarke has acutely observed, in “the last two decades the theoretical trope of the posthuman has upped the ante on the notion of the postmodern” (Clarke 2008: 2).

In addition to How We Became Posthumans, Hayles explores on the subject of posthumanism and its relation to autonomy in her another book entitled, My Mother was a Computer. In this particular book, Hayles examines the subject matter of computational thinking by focusing on the relationship between code and language.

But posthumanism is not merely an abstract academic affair, for popular culture has been crucial in the examination and expansion of posthumanist existence.

One such example is Slavoj Žižek, who insists on the reading of Deckard as a replicant and makes the point by completely reversing the human/replicant distinction. Due to the “non substantial status of the subject” as such, he argues, every human being is nothing but a replicant; or, “man is a replicant who does not know it” (40-41).