From Cybernetic Systems to Quantum Entanglements: Posthuman Agency in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and The Peripheral

حفصي ميرة

Article Details

From Cybernetic Systems to Quantum Entanglements: Posthuman Agency in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and The Peripheral

Authors:

حفصي ميرة

Publisher:

Centre universitaire d'El Bayadh

Journal:

مجلة الانسان والمجال Vol.11 Issue 2, pp.1024-1045

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2025

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001481527

pISSN:

2602-5167

Keywords:

Abstract:

 This article seeks to explore William Gibson's literary shift from cybernetic to quantum posthumanism in his cyberpunk narratives. While extensive scholarship of his early fiction, marked by an emphasis on his foundational debut novel Neuromancer (1984), analyses his disembodied and deterministic systems, less research has investigated the ontological innovations of his latest narratives. To address this gap, this research examines how The Peripheral (2014) marks an ontological maturation in its reconfiguration of consciousness and agency as distributed, entangled, and emergent. Using a theoretical framework that is grounded in the entanglement between theories of N. Katherine Hayles, Donna J. Haraway, Karen Barad, and Rosi Braidotti, this paper asserts Gibson's subversion of humanist binaries and recontextualization of agency within relational human-machine assemblages. Hence, Gibson’s narratives and characters both reflect and perform this ontological transition, while highlighting the entangled ethical responsibilities inherent in technologically mediated futures.

Article Details

From Cybernetic Systems to Quantum Entanglements: Posthuman Agency in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and The Peripheral

Authors:

حفصي ميرة

Publisher:

Centre universitaire d'El Bayadh

Journal:

مجلة الانسان والمجال Vol.11 Issue 2, pp.1024-1045

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2025

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001481527

pISSN:

2602-5167

agency

consciousness

quantum/cybernetic posthumanism

William Gibson

cyberpunk

Issues

Article Details

From Cybernetic Systems to Quantum Entanglements: Posthuman Agency in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and The Peripheral

Authors: حفصي ميرة

Publisher: Centre universitaire d'El Bayadh

Journal: مجلة الانسان والمجال Vol.11 Issue 2, pp.1024-1045

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 12/2025

Document Language: English

Document ID (Org No.): 2001481527

pISSN: 2602-5167

agency

consciousness

quantum/cybernetic posthumanism

William Gibson

cyberpunk

Issues

Authors:

حفصي ميرة

Publisher:

Centre universitaire d'El Bayadh

Journal:

مجلة الانسان والمجال Vol.11 Issue 2, pp.1024-1045

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

12/2025

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001481527

pISSN:

2602-5167