Chapter 3 - Postperiodization

Summary

The term and concept “posthumanism,” emerging as it did in the late twentieth century, differs from earlier literary and historical periodizations. In part, that’s because our media of communication, which expanded exponentially around this time, are themselves operating at scales that exceed human understanding. Like photography, film, and video before them, but on a different scale, digital media situate what we think and say within communicative networks that are larger than consciousness. Conveying messages and accessing information over distances and at speeds that are imperceptible to our senses, our media are also acting on what we are thinking, saying, and writing; scouring our words for patterns and preferences in ways few of us notice when we are posting on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram or sending emails and writing blog posts.