ABSTRACT
The anxious rhythm of digital developments, together with the resulting networked culture, urges scholars to find a renewed proposal for the concept of the human. In this regard, posthumanism arises in the midst of present-day uneasiness to map a world of kaleidoscopic opportunities for human enhancement and new ways of representation. Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island (2015) condenses such contemporary issues and offers a reflection on what human implies in the Google era. The novel provides an insight into U., a corporate anthropologist who is entrusted with writing The Great Report, a project that is meant to unveil the universal codex governing our age. This paper aims to contribute to posthumanism by examining how McCarthy recasts subjectivity in U. by conceiving him as a ‘dividual’—a relational being who is inherently wired to techno-scientific progress. Furthermore, the analysis tackles new modes of creativity that emerge from metamodern philosophies. Finally, the writer and the reader are assessed through the lens of dividual affects to determine how literature can help to apprehend our present and improve the future.
