Meaning without subject: 'Melanctha' and the relation of communication to the human mind

This essay argues that Gertrude Steins novella Melanctha (1909) inscribed within the canon of Anglo-American modernism the conceptual coordinates for the emergence of a posthumanist aesthetics. It also argues that the potential of such a radical event can be more fully appreciated by considering Steins pioneering treatment of meaning in the novella alongside Niklas Luhmanns account of meaning in his theory of social systems. The essay emphasises the details of Steins crucial contribution to the articulation of a discourse of posthumanism and relates this occurrence to the emergence of a mass-media system at the beginning of the twentieth century.