Since Gutenberg's time, every aspect of print has gradually changed. But
the advent of computational media has exponentially increased the pace,
transforming how books are composed, designed, edited, typeset,
distributed, sold, and read. N. Katherine Hayles traces the emergence of
what she identifies as the postprint condition, exploring how the
interweaving of print and digital technologies has changed not only
books but also language, authorship, and what it means to be human.
Hayles considers the ways in which print has been enmeshed in literate
societies and how these are changing as some of the cognitive tasks once
performed exclusively by humans are now carried out by computational
media. Interpretations and meaning-making practices circulate through
transindividual collectivities created by interconnections between
humans and computational media, which Hayles calls cognitive
assemblages. Her theoretical framework conceptualizes innovations in
print technology as redistributions of cognitive capabilities between
humans and machines. Humanity is becoming computational, just as
computational systems are edging toward processes once thought of as
distinctively human. Books in all their diversity are also in the
process of becoming computational, representing a crucial site of
ongoing cognitive transformations.
Hayles details the consequences for the humanities through interviews
with scholars and university press professionals and considers the
cultural implications in readings of two novels, The Silent History
and The Word Exchange, that explore the postprint condition. Spanning
fields including book studies, cultural theory, and media archeology,
Postprint is a strikingly original consideration of the role of
computational media in the ongoing evolution of humanity.
