Metaphors shape our understanding of the world. Instead of anthropomorphic or anthropocentric metaphors we can think of human-nonhuman relations as a form of technosymbiosis which places human beings in relation to other species and to non-human agents and within a larger ecology. 

In this event, GW Professor Alexa Alice Joubin will lead the discussion of N. Katherine Hayles’s work. Professor Hayles, who is a distinguished research professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the James B. Duke Professor Emerita from Duke University, will be visiting GW in October.

Readings for this event:

• N. Katherine Hayles, “Technosymbiosis: Figuring (Out) Our Relations to AI,” Feminist AI, ed. Browne et al (Oxford, 2023), pp. 1-18. 
• Hayles, chapter 1 of Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman Symbionts (University of Chicago Press, 2025) 

Hybrid event: In-person in Phillips 411 and on Zoom.