Romantic automata : exhibits, figures, organisms / edited by Michael Demson, Christopher R. Clason.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Demson, Michael, editor.

Clason, Christopher R., editor.

Series:

Transits: Literature, Thought and Culture 1650-1850

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 pages).

Place of Publication:

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania : Bucknell University Press, [2020]

Summary:

For most of the eighteenth century, automata were deemed a celebration of human ingenuity, feats of science and reason. Among the Romantics, however, they prompted a contradictory apprehension about mechanization and contrivance: such science and engineering threatened the spiritual nature of life, the source of compassion in human society. A deep dread of puppets and the machinery that propels them consequently surfaced in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century literature. Romantic Automata is a collection of essays examining the rise of this cultural suspicion of mechanical imitations of life. Recent scholarship in post-humanism, post-colonialism, disability studies, post-modern feminism, eco-criticism, and radical Orientalism has significantly affected the critical discourse on this topic. In engaging with the work and thought of Coleridge, Poe, Hoffmann, Mary Shelley, and other Romantic luminaries, the contributors to this collection open new methodological approaches to understanding human interaction with technology that strives to simulate, supplement, or supplant organic life. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Illustrations

Introduction

PART ONE: Exhibitions

1 The Uncanny Valley

2 The (Re-)Winding of Hoffmann’s Automata

3 Uncanny Prosthetics

PART TWO: Figures

4 Romantic Tales of Pseudo-Automata

5 Rattled Women, Shaken Toys

6 Automatic for All

7 “A little earthly idol to contract your ideas”

PART THREE: Organisms

8 Schelling’s Uncanny Organism

9 “It . . . lives by dying”

10 The Metaphysical Machinery of Mining in Novalis’s Works

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Notes on Contributors

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-68448-180-5

OCLC:

1229161003