English

The aim of this study is to explore the notion of ‘human’ identity in reference to the spectrum of posthumanism. The study will highlight how the idea of posthumanism challenges and widens the borders of the category of ‘human’, allowing the traditionally excluded categories, such as ‘women’ to be considered as humans. The study will analyze the issue in reference to the story, “With Fate Conspire” by Vandana Singh where the author blurs the line between past and present. The story includes three interconnected women who with the help of a machine renegotiate the identity of women and move forward from the traditional concept of ‘human’.

In his novel The War Outside of Ireland, and more recently in his hypertext fiction afternoon, Michael Joyce remarks on a shift in the postindustrial wind. We seem, he suggests, to be undergoing a change of identity, weaving a fresh social fabric. "I have argued elsewhere that Japan is now everywhere. It is the long dream of a new culture." 1 Like Roland Barthes before him (Empire of Signs) and William Gibson after (Neuromancer), Joyce registers the rising appeal of a dream-state characterized by headlong technological advancement and the groundless play of signifiers. There are many reasons to think of this state as Greater Nippon -not just the recent economic prominence of Japan, but also the example it offers of a hyperadaptive, bricoleur society rebuilding itself from its own ruins. As Joyce says, however, "Japan" is now everywhere, not a state but a state of mind, so the name seems somewhat arbitrary. We could as easily invoke other dreams of cultural revolution: George Bush's Megalo-American "new world order"; Jean Baudrillard's nightmare of "total spatio-dynamic theatre" 2 ; Donna Haraway's vision of cyborg politics played out within "a polymorphous information system" that has become "a deadly game." 3 All of these long dreams have something in common: the conviction that the transition from a mode of production to a "mode of information" 4 has effects exceeding the traditional boundaries of economics and politics. The transforming effect of rapidly evolving communication and information technologies appears first in the marketplace, but like Joyce's imaginary Japan, the marketplace of semiotic exchange is now everywhere: in our homes, in our bedrooms, in our minds. Changes in technology portend more than, in Mark Poster's phrase, "the end of the proletariat as Marx knew it"; 5 they suggest possibilities for a reformulation of the subject, a truly radical revision of identity and social relations. 6 The effects will touch us (so we dream) in our languages, our narratives, our domestic objects, our fashion systems, our games and entertainments. The changes will be felt throughout our culture.

The arrival of hypertext is more than an advance in information technology. Seen from the viewpoint of textual theory, hypertext systems appear as the practical implementation of a conceptual movement that coincides with the late phase of modernity. This movement rejects authoritarian, "logocentric" hierarchies of language, whose modes of operation are linear and deductive, and seeks instead systems of discourse that admit a plurality of meanings, where the operative modes are hypothesis and interpretive play and hierarchies are contingent and local. The editors of a recent collection of post-structuralist literary criticism strike a characteristic note when they announce that each of the essays in their volume "develops an insistent coherence of its own that drives toward conclusive and irrefutable assertions. But it does this while holding open the possibility of a multiplicity of competing meanings, each of which denies the primacy of the others" (Machin and Norris 1987, 7).

This paper presents a case study of the first three months of a new intergenerational design team with children ages 10-13. It discusses the research and design methods used for working with children of this age group. The challenges and opportunities of starting a new team, and the lessons learned are discussed.

This paper presents a case study of the first three months of a new intergenerational design team with children ages 10-13. It discusses the research and design methods used for working with children of this age group. The challenges and opportunities of starting a new team, and the lessons learned are discussed.

on material conditions. We could answer yes again in a more,abstract sense, in that the information you see here comes in convenient, discrete packages neatly located in a clearly defined space. Cryptic, fragmentary information, densely packed into some mysterious array – what else could it be but digital?