Posthumanism and Digital Subjectivity in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun: Deconstructing Human Identity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) presents a compelling exploration of artificial intelligence (AI), human identity, and digital subjectivity in a rapidly evolving posthuman world. This study critically examines the novel through the lens of Stefan Herbrechter’s Critical Posthumanism (2020) to interrogate the shifting boundaries between human and non-human consciousness. Herbrechter’s framework challenges traditional anthropocentric notions of subjectivity, arguing that posthuman identity emerges through interaction, adaptation, and rationality rather than fixed biological or cognitive markers. Klara, an artificial being, disrupts the conventional understanding of selfhood by demonstrating cognitive agency, affective intelligence, and a form of ethical subjectivity that transcends human exclusivity. This paper deconstructs the anthropocentric hierarchy within the novel, revealing how artificial intelligence (AI) challenges humanist epistemologies and problematizes the binaries of organic and artificial, subject and object, and human and non-human. By applying Critical Posthumanism, this study explores how Ishiguro’s narrative dismantles essentialist human identity in favor of a more fluid, networked, and interdependent conception of existence. The findings contribute to ongoing debates in artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, digital subjectivity, and posthumanist literary studies, offering a nuanced critique of the socio-technological anxieties that shape contemporary engagements with artificial intelligence (AI).