The Xenopoetics of Daniel Y. Harris’ The Posthuman Series
The Xenopoetics of Daniel Y. Harris’ The Posthuman Series
Andrew C. Wenaus, the University of Western Ontario
(click on the above title for the following description and link to the VICFA site)
In November 2023, Andrew C. Wenaus of the University of Western Ontario gave a lecture with the title “The Xenopoetics of Daniel Y. Harris’ The Posthuman Series” in a panel discussion titled “Artificial Progeny, Determinism and the Limits of Posthumanism,” at the 2023 Virtual International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (VICFA). The conference’s 2023 theme was “AI, Algorithms, Automation, and Art.”
Andrew C. Wenaus’ lecture, “The Xenopoetics of Daniel Y. Harris’ The Posthuman Series,” considered the speculative xenopoetics of poet Daniel Y. Harris’ ongoing The Posthuman Series (2016-present) and its singular approach to speculative poetry and, more specifically, xenopoetics. For Harris, the future of poetry will involve a metamorphosis from written language to executable computer code. Xenopoetics formally embodies the novum—that is, it literalizes defamiliarization—Harris’ work offers itself to science fiction readers and critics as a possible gesture forward for the field as writers increasingly negotiate emerging AI technologies.
