The lives of machines : the industrial imaginary in Victorian literature and culture / Tamara Ketabgian.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ketabgian, Tamara Siroone, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Literature and technology--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and technology.

Machinery in literature.

Machinery--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Machinery.

Technology--Social aspects--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Technology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, [2011]

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Today we commonly describe ourselves as machines that "let off steam" or feel "under pressure." The Lives of Machines investigates how Victorian technoculture came to shape this language of human emotion so pervasively and irrevocably and argues that nothing is more intensely human and affecting than the nonhuman. Tamara Ketabgian explores the emergence of a modern and more mechanical view of human nature in Victorian literature and culture. Treating British literature from the 1830s to the 1870s, this study examines forms of feeling and community that combine the vital and the mechanical, the human and the nonhuman, in surprisingly hybrid and productive alliances. Challenging accounts of industrial alienation that still persist, the author defines mechanical character and feeling not as erasures or negations of self, but as robust and nuanced entities in their own right. The Lives of Machines thus offers an alternate cultural history that traces sympathies between humans, animals, and machines in novels and nonfiction about factory work as well as in other unexpected literary sites and genres, whether domestic, scientific, musical, or philosophical. Ketabgian historicizes a model of affect and community that continues to inform recent theories of technology, psychology, and the posthuman. The Lives of Machines will be of interest to students of British literature and history, history of science and of technology, novel studies, psychoanalysis, and postmodern cultural studies.

Contents:

Human parts and prosthetic networks : the Victorian factory and mesmeric forces

Animal machine

"Melancholy mad elephants" : affect and the animal machine in Hard times

Brute appetites : labor and leisure in Mary Barton and early Victorian Manchester

Psychic forces : steam, water, and mechanical perception in The mill on the floss

"A musical steam engine" : sympathy, technique, and industrial commaunity.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-219) and index.

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on information from the publisher.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780472900350

0472900358

9780472051403

0472051407

9780472071401

0472071408

OCLC:

798294483