N. Katherine Hayles is a noted postmodern literary critic and theorist as well as the author of How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics which won the Rene Wellek Prize for the best book in literary theory for 1998–1999 [1]. Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... René Wellek (1903-1995) was a Czech-German comparative literary critic. ...

Background

Hayles received her B.S. in Chemistry from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1966, her M.S. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1969, her M.A. in English Literature from Michigan State University in 1970, and her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Rochester in 1977. She has taught at the University of Iowa, University of Missouri, Rolla, the California Institute of Technology, and Dartmouth College. A Bachelor of Science (B.S., B.Sc. ... Multicolored chemicals are frequent hallmarks of chemistry. ... Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private higher education institute, with emphasis on career preparation, in Rochester, New York founded in 1829. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one to three years in duration. ... The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, coeducational university located in Pasadena, California, in the United States. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one to three years in duration. ... The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian. ... Michigan State University (MSU) is a public university in East Lansing, Michigan. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... Located in Rochester, New York, USA and founded in 1850, the University of Rochester is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research institution. ... The University of Iowa is a major national research university located on a 1,900-acre campus in Iowa City, Iowa, USA, on the Iowa River in East Central Iowa. ... UMR logo The University of Missouri-Rolla (abbreviated UMR) is an institution of higher learning located in Rolla, Missouri and part of the University of Missouri system. ... The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, coeducational university located in Pasadena, California, in the United States. ... Dartmouth College is a private academic institution in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. ...

She is currently the Hillis Professor of Literature in English and Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she has taught since 1992. The academic discipline of English studies explores the production and analysis of texts produced in English (or in areas of the world in which English is a common mode of communication). ... Usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours, design is used as both a noun and a verb. ... University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles, popularly known as UCLA, is a public, coeducational university located in the residential area of Westwood within the city of Los Angeles. ...

Research

N. Katherine Hayles is one of the foremost scholars of the relationship between literature and science in the late twentieth century. Her early work orchestrates the play of resonances between contemporary scientific paradigms and literature.

She is the author of Chaos Bound, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, and Writing Machines. Her most recent book is My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts.

Hayles' essays and books focus upon American postmodern literature, (particularly, though not limited to, the works of David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Robert Coover) as well as the area of Literature and Science. She also writes on electronic textuality, Posthumanism, Technocriticism, Electronic literature, Hypertext, and Hypertext fiction. She is particularly concerned with the parallels between scientific models and literary theories as well as in contextualizing the interactions between humans and intelligent machines. The literature which arose as a series of styles and ideas in the post-World War II period which reacted against the perceived norms of modernist literature has been termed postmodern literature, even as it extended many of the fundamental techniques and assumptions of modern literature (see modernism, postmodernism). ... David Foster Wallace (born February 21, 1962 in Ithaca, New York) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. ... Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. ... Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. ... Vladimir Nabokov This page is about the novelist. ... Mark Z. Danielewski (born 1966) is an American author best known for his bestselling 2000 book, House of Leaves. ... Robert Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American author and professor in the Literary Arts program at Brown University. ... In literary and critical theory, posthumanism, meaning beyond humanism, is a European emergent philosophy and is the dominant secular, rational humanist philosophy. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The term electronic literature refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. ... In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), branch or perform on request. ... Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature found mostly online, characterized by non-linearity and reader interaction. ...

Select bibliography

• My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts, 2005
• Nanoculture: Implications of the New Technoscience (ed.), 2004
• Writing Machines, 2002
• How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, 1999
• Chaos and Order (ed.), 1991
• Chaos Bound, 1990
• The Cosmic Web, 1984

See also

• Jay David Bolter
• J.Yellowlees Douglas
• Shelley Jackson
• Michael Joyce
• George Landow
• Lev Manovich
• Stuart Moulthrop

To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... J. Yellowlees Douglas is Director of the Center for Written and Oral Communication at the University of Florida as well as serving as serving as an Assistant Professor of English. ... For the author of The Lottery and other short stories, see Shirley Jackson. ... Michael Joyce (b. ... George P. Landow is the founder and current webmaster of The Victorian, Postcolonial, and Cyberspace and Hypertext sites. ... Lev Manovich is Professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, where he teaches new media art and theory. ...

External links

• UCLA English Department
• UCLA Design/Media Arts
• UCSB page
• Chicago Press page