The Pandemic as a Gateway to the Posthuman in the Digital Novel <i>The Silent History</i>

The COVID-19 pandemic has been explored from different standpoints and, like many preceding pandemics, often interpreted as a rupture, undermining faith in human progress and exploring human vulnerability. Literature has also traditionally reflected pandemics in this light. However, with the rise of post-human studies, new ways of thinking about pandemics have emerged, inviting a re-evaluation of what it means to be human. As a situation of, and metaphor for, transformation, pandemics challenge traditional humanist narratives, offering new forms of identity, agency, and consciousness and providing new ways to reflect the human/non-human entanglement and the relationship between humanity, technology, and the environment. This article focuses on The Silent History, originally published as a touchscreen serialized novel that depicts a pandemic that renders children unable to use and understand language and challenges restricted definitions of what counts as human. The novel explores a post-anthropocentric world-view, questioning the centrality of language to human identity and experience as well as the conception of life as a continuous line of enhancement. The Silent History challenges entrenched notions of humanity and conventional forms of storytelling as it combines the technological affordances of iPhones and iPads through images, interactive maps, sounds, videos, presentations, and GPS technology, with a string of serialized character “testimonials.” The pandemic is not presented as a rupture but, rather, as a gateway into a new human condition akin to a networked existence, where human identity is redefined through its entanglement with technology, the environment, and other non-human entities.