Hayles, N. Katherine
Website: nkhayles.com
N. Katherine Hayles is the Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the James B. Duke Professor Emerita from Duke University. Her research focuses on the relations of literature, science and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Her twelve print books include Postprint: Books and Becoming Computational (Columbia, 2021), Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017) and How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis (Univ. of Chicago Press 2015), in addition to over 100 peer-reviewed articles. Her books have won several prizes, including The Rene Wellek Award for the Best Book in Literary Theory for How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Literature, Cybernetics and Informatics, and the Suzanne Langer Award for Writing Machines. She has been recognized by many fellowships and awards, including two NEH Fellowships, a Guggenheim, a Rockefellar Residential Fellowship at Bellagio, and two University of California Presidential Research Fellowships. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is currently at work on Technosymbiosis: Futures of the Human.
Professional Experience
Distinguished Guest Professor, Uppsala University, 2018-2022
Distinguished Research Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles 2017-present
James B. Duke Professor of Literature Emerita
Professor of Literature and Director of Graduate Studies, Literature Program, Duke University, 2008-2014
John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature University of California, Los Angeles 2002-2008
Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles, 2003-2008
Distinguished Professor, Design/Media Arts, University of California, Los Angeles, 2003-2008
Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992-2003
Professor of English, University of Iowa, 1990-92
Associate Professor of English, University of Iowa, 1985-1989
Visiting Associate Professor of Literature, Caltech, Fall 1988
Assistant Professor of English, University of Missouri-Rolla, 1982-85
Visiting Associate, California Institute of Technology, 1979-80
Assistant Professor of English, Dartmouth College, 1976-82
Instructor, Dartmouth College, 1975-76
Chemical Research Consultant, Beckman Instrument Company, 1968-70
Research Chemist, Xerox Corporation, 1966
Fields
Literature, Science and Technology of the 20th and 21st Century
Electronic Textuality
Modern and Postmodern American and British Fiction
Critical Theory; Science Fiction
Academic Honors and Fellowships
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Elected 2015
Hurst Distinguished Professor, Washington University, October 16-19, 2018
Luesebrink Career Achievement Award, Electronic Literature Organization, 2018
Academia Europaea, Elected 2014
Critical Inquiry Professor, University of Chicago, April-May 2015
Holmes Seminar Professor, University of Kansas, June 2014
Lifetime Achievement Award, Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, 2013
Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Durham U.K., 2014-2015
Pilgrim Lifetime Achievement Award, Science Fiction Research Associates, 2012
Digital Publishing Grant, $10,000, Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University
GreaterThanGames Humanities Laboratory, Co-Director, $225,000 grant for 2011-2014
Honorary Doctorate, Art College of Design, Pasadena CA 2010
Inductee, Innovation Hall of Fame, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY, 2010
Honorary Doctorate, Umea University, Sweden, 2007
Presidential Research Fellowship, University of California, 2006-7
ASC Fellowship, National Humanities Center, 2006
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, 2005-6
Fulbright Senior Specialist, Moscow University, 2005
Susanne E. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form, awarded by the Media Ecology Association to Writing Machines, 2002.
Honorary Phi Beta Kappa Membership, 2001.
René Wellek Prize for Best Book in Literary Theory for 1998-99, awarded by the American Comparative Literature Association to How We Became Posthuman Eaton Award for the Best Book in Science Fiction Theory and Criticism for 1998-99, awarded to How We Became Posthuman Council of the Humanities Fellowship, Princeton University, 2000
Eby Award for Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching, UCLA, 1999
Luckman Distinguished Teaching Award, UCLA, 1999
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1999
Bellagio Residential Fellowship, Rockefeller Foundation, 1999
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Postprint: Books and Becoming Computational. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.
Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
A New Paradigm for the Humanities: Comparative Textual Media (co-authored with Jessica Pressman), forthcoming University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis, University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. Accompanying website at http://newhorizons.eliterature.org.
Winner of the Crystal Book Award of Excellence, Scholarly Reference, Chicago Book Clinic and Media Show 2008.
My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Writing Machines. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002.
How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.
The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters published in such journals as American Literature, Critical Inquiry, Science-Fiction Studies, New Literary History, etc.
Interest Areas
• Critical Theory
• Visual Culture / Media Studies / Digital Humanities
