Posthumanism and Technical Communication: Using an Assemblage Assignment in an Interdisciplinary Seminar

Abstract

As technical communicators contend with increasingly complex techno-social systems of activity, a posthumanist approach to shared agency across humans and nonhuman components becomes more vital to the field’s development. This paper suggests that the theoretic concept of “assemblage” productively supports such an approach. The authors trace an assemblage analysis assignment as a key process and deliverable in an interdisciplinary seminar to demonstrate its scope and benefit. A key takeaway is that the complexity and indeterminate parameters of the assemblage concept itself demands engagement with a posthumanist lens of technical communication.