N. Katherine Hayles

Nancy Katherine Hayles (born 1943) is an American scholar who focuses on the interconnections "between science, literature, and technology". Originally a research chemist in the 1960s, she then earned her doctorate in English literature and became a distinguished professor. In the humanities, her work, How We Became Posthuman (1999) is a seminal foundation for posthumanism. In literary criticism, she is most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, particularly American literature. Throughout her work,, Hayles has examined how humans interact with technology and media. She explores how digital technologies affect humanities research. As one of the early and leading scholars of electronic literature, Hayles introduced digital literature concepts to a generation of scholars and writers in the 1990s through her courses for the National Endowment of Humanities.